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Why Creativity Is a Numbers Game (2015)

blogs.scientificamerican.com

41–44 of 44 posts

Re: Why Creativity Is a Numbers Game (2015)

#41

>creative greatness appears to be doing things differently I've done things differently just out of boredom caused by doing a task, the same way repeatedly. Example: I sometimes get tired of a particular food and tweak it by adding a new ingredient or eating it with something different. >Edison was unlucky—he failed to invent fuel cells. The first comercially successful fuel cells were developed in the mid-twentieth…

> This is completely different from the "Edison never gave up and kept working till he succeeded" talks.

Yeah.. Its actually better, IMHO, because knowing when to move onto the next thing (and not letting your previous failure deter you from the next thing) is an important part of success. Sometimes the diversion lets you come back to the original thing with new insight later (or after your subconscious has worked on it for some time).

Re: Why Creativity Is a Numbers Game (2015)

#42

I don’t dispute most of the factual claims in this article. But this whole lens on what creativity “is” smacks of someone really hoping something so mysterious can be explained using concrete and easy to understand concepts. I’ve personally known and worked with some real creative powerhouses. This sort of article doesn’t really address what makes them effective. It especially doesn’t describe how they seem to think…

Out of curiosity, what were some of your observations from working with these creative powerhouses?

So many,

But most salient might be the irrational belief that what you are doing matters.

Re: Why Creativity Is a Numbers Game (2015)

#43
post #23
post #11

Personally I feel that creativity is something like saturating a solution with ideas until you get that one seed crystal and then everything just comes together. If it wasn't already full of thoughts and ideas already, that seed would simply dissolve.

Which is also why creativity suffers in totalitarian regimes like China. One or two of those ideas are bound to step on the toes of the establishment, but they need to be explored as part of the process.

In totalitarian regimes, creativity have a complete different side. Just take Russian Authors like fyodor dostoevsky.

Creativity is not only in literature but also in other areas such as business models, Chinese Startups have most innovative business models.

Re: Why Creativity Is a Numbers Game (2015)

#44

Numbers, if your lens is statistics. But human behavior is about um...human behavior. Creativity is about a willingness to experiment; to not fear "failure"; and to learn. Nothing has triggered more creative ideas than asking "what if?"

My point is, "numbers game" is correlation. The root cause is the fearless application of "what if?"

Trying repetitively, is the the same as asking "what if?" over and over.

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