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Old Age and Creativity

inference-review.com

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Re: Old Age and Creativity

#11

Post by skohan »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #7
makach wrote: post #5

what, no, strongly disagree. It is true that a lot of science is made whilst young and this is more likely due to the fact that they had a lot of time, no family, or kids, also you are unconstrained by the weight of your own wisdom. Correlation does not imply causation

>also you are unconstrained by the weight of your own wisdom. sounds like a creative way of saying that old age depletes creativity.

No it's a clarifying statement. I believe they're arguing that creativity is not depleted as a matter of biological inevitability - like decreasing skin elasticity - but rather that older people tend to develop a mindset which doesn't correlate well with creative thought.

Those are very different causes with very different implications.

Re: Old Age and Creativity

#12

Post by techas »

jleyank wrote: post #2

How many academic scientists end up being buried in managing science, particularly seeking funding? There’s way fewer aristocrats funding scientists as they would a zoo. Maybe the most visible advances come from those hungry enough and with time enough to do it? Some of these older fellows trained a lot of students, such as bethe or wheeler. How old were the bell labs people when they did plan 9? Is Knuth still consi…

> How many academic scientists end up being buried in managing science, particularly seeking funding?

Today?? 100% of successful scientists.

Re: Old Age and Creativity

#13

Post by mightykipper »

flobosg wrote: post #4

> Mathematicians, a different breed entirely, had Leonhard Euler and Carl Friedrich Gauss who kept going until a very old age, for their times—76 and 77—despite starting very early, as mathematicians seem to do. This is not a universal trend: in the twentieth century, David Hilbert at 81 and André Weil at 92 are the only exemplars that come to mind. What about Paul Erdős?

Or Roger Penrose. Don't know if he's still publishing but he's 90 now and he had papers published in 2011, which must count him as old.

The author also seems to forget recently departed physics genius Steven Hawking, still working until his death at 76 afaik.

Re: Old Age and Creativity

#14

Post by Juliate »

paulpauper wrote: post #9

Art has the advantage of being a market. so even in old age there will always be demand for well known artists. but academia is more about quantifiable merit and results

> of being a market

of _having_ a market. Not all art is put forth, sought after, or marketable.

And it's the same for science. With how academia/publishing/industries works now, there is a market for science too. But not all of it either.

Re: Old Age and Creativity

#15

Post by birdyrooster »

colordrops wrote: post #6
makach wrote: post #5

what, no, strongly disagree. It is true that a lot of science is made whilst young and this is more likely due to the fact that they had a lot of time, no family, or kids, also you are unconstrained by the weight of your own wisdom. Correlation does not imply causation

So age is just skin deep?

Age doesn't cause faults of creativity. Cumulative changes in personal philosophy, time constraints and disease are most likely responsible.

Re: Old Age and Creativity

#17

Post by bambax »

> He drew some surprising conclusions: the writers were less likely to carry on, whereas some of the greatest artists, Michelangelo, Titian [etc.], became, if anything, more productive and liberated from convention as they went into old age

This seems pretty arbitrary and anecdotal, and there are famous counterexamples.

In French, Saint-Simon (the memorialist, not the economist) wrote his masterpiece of over 3 million words between age 65 and 75, in the middle of the 18th century (he died at 80).

Victor Hugo, born in 1802, published four enormous novels after the age of 60 (Les Misérables, 1862; Les Travailleurs de la Mer, 1866; L'Homme qui rit, 1869; Quatrevingt-treize, 1874), and his most famous poetry books after age 54 (Les Contemplations, 1856; La Légende des siècles, 1859).

Chateaubriand finished writing his masterpiece, his memoirs, aged 73.

I could go on.

Re: Old Age and Creativity

#18

Post by jlokier »

Whenever this comes up I recommend: The real relationship between your age and your chance of success, which summarises a few statistics on this topic.

https://www.ted.com/talks/albert_laszlo_barabasi_the_real_re...

"... it created the impression to us that creativity equals youth, which is painful, right?"

"... is it really true that creativity vanishes as we age?"

Relevant to HN, there's also a segment on startup success.

Re: Old Age and Creativity

#20

Post by Terry_Roll »

bncy wrote: post #19

What about the correlation between testosterone levels and creativity? I think that those known for being well-performing in their old age are just exceptions. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00926...

They use Testosterone to treat dementia, but its not the only factor.
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