>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 century, long after Edison moved on to pursuing other ideas. >Edison always had somewhere to channel his efforts whenever he ran into temporary obstacles

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

> 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).

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.

Totalitarian governments are just one flavor of repression of creativity. Every culture has its unutterable heresies. In totalitarian societies it's the government that enforces this. In free societies it's the people themselves.

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.

Perhaps in that spirit this will interest you:

http://www.ramatirtha.org/vol1/inspiration.htm

this was part of my concern over the current dislike of tech's mantra "move fast and break things".

the mistake was tech thought it was somehow righteously above all others, so its good that people are finally saying 'no, you are you are jerks', but I think we are all jerks and we should accept that and move on. Furthermore, we should accept that making mistakes is a necessary byproduct of innovation. I think these concepts are tied together, I am just doing a bad job at communicating it.

I view humans in a universe like a computer program that brute-forces to find a better solution. You can have some people do everything right and nothing ever works out for them. While you can have the opposite happen. The anomalies/survivorship bias gets the most media attention and keeps the rat race going. Sometimes this makes me think the universe is just the outcome of brute-forcing as well.

Yet, a million monkeys at a million keyboards would not produce the works of Shakespeare.

But would a million humans at a million keyboards?

How much time you gave them?

Some people have the ability to synthesise and evaluate particular ideas faster than average.

This is definitely a help. I've created a LOT of crap, but I've had a good number of successes solely due to quantity. However, 80% of success really is showing up. You have to try, and not get discouraged. I was dirt poor as a kid, homeless twice before age 9, and I've had to rebuild my life twice as an adult. Simply pushing forward was a huge part of my success today.

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. And once you succeed, KEEP TRYING.

The difference between a failed businessperson and a successful one is the successful one tried again.

The same could be said about lottery winners.

Definitely the problem with the "The difference between X and Y" anecdotal structure is that often there are more than just one difference between things, even if they are somewhat alike.

Isn't this true only through the optics of economy?

You can have creative endeavors that serve no purpose, and you still do it for the sake of the activity. Maybe it's the by product of practice, but it's still creative work.

Or even the a problem solving situation, it might solve a problem but no be the optimal solution.

It makes sense that it’s a numbers game. If statistically I try 100 projects and only 3% succeed, I am obviosly doing better than someone putting in 1/10 of the effort and having no success. The key ability is not genious but ability to iterate many many times despite failures.

I'm the crazy idea guy at work. They are usually bad ideas. But occasionally we have to pause and say "that might be a good idea", and sometimes an idea turns out to be really good, attacking an issue from an unexpected angle.

So for me, definitely a numbers game.

"Success is a numbers game," would have been a more appropriate title.

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 about it, which, I would say is the most interesting topic.

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.

One podcast I've found to be interesting from the perspective of studying creativity is WTF with Marc Maron.

Especially among great comedians, the process described in the article is essentially the process many people interviewed by Marc have followed.

Creativity is a numbers game, and some brains have a higher batting average

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.

Try. Evaluate. Adjust. Repeat. Don't stop.

Creativity is as much a numbers game as Monopoly (the literal board game) is a numbers game: it is and it isn't.

Sure, I mean you can use statistics and wave your magic eugenics wand around but I see right through you. It's a disgrace that in the modern neoliberal hegemony a crock of shit like this gets published in an outlet like Scientific American.

"It's a great myth that creative geniuses consistently produce great work. Whereas consistency may be the key to expertise, the secret to creative greatness appears to be doing things differently—even when that means failing"

Genius is genetic. Some people just seem to "stumble" upon ideas and methods, but its not random. Why there seems to be such pervasive efforts to prove anything other than the obvious is a mystery to me.

EDIT:

wikpedia page on it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence

> Genius is genetic.

Citation? This seems far from obvious to me. I get that intelligence is some percent heritable, but that’s not the same.

It's just politically incorrect, so mainstream scientists wont publish it/arent discussing it in public. Read about ahskenazi jewish people. Both founders of FB and Google are ashkenazi for example

> ahskenazi

Dude, there are other factors that I'll consider more important than their tribe.

1. Their family's net worth.

2. The high school they attended

If there's is a high level of creativity in their tribe, then I'll lean towards the idea of creativity boosting cultural practices than genes.

In Nigeria for instance, the Hausa aren't known for their intelligence, and have a reputation for being plain dumb but very violent especially for religious causes (Islam).

The Yorubas are known for being bookworms - they have the highest rates of schooling in the country. And are quite political.

The igbos are known for their entrepreneurship prowress. They tend not to value schooling and are blunt with their words. They claim to have a jewish ancestory.

Someone who's not familiar with their history would claim these differences to be genetic. However, some historical accidents and cultural and religious differences are key.

The igbos have the highest rate of apprenticeship in the country. And they embody the phrase, "Money talks bullshit walks" to a fault. This explains their business acumen. Their language doesn't have honorifics unlike the yorubas.

The seas brought Europeans to the southern part of the country where the Yorubas dwell and for a long while, the capital of the country was located there too. Hence the value for schooling and politics.

Add Islamic schools, very hot weather - and a religion of marrying many wives at an early age and you get the Hausas. They make up the majority of the army as being a soldier is about the only path to a better life.

Conclusion, you'd need to study the history and culture of the Ahskenazi before claiming a genetic predisposition to creativity.

Sure, dig your head in the sand

The assertion you're making is a testable idea. You can check if some apparent trait is genetic or cultural by looking at children adopted by other ethnicities.

They've done quite a number of studies like that, including studies on identical twins adopted by different parents, which gives you matching DNA.

The reason scientists aren't saying such things, is because it's pretty clearly wrong.

Just google ashkenazi genius, jewish Nobel prize, its all over the internet.

Heres a wikipedia page on it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence

Meaning of IQ Points

40 - 54 - Severely challenged

55 - 69 - Challenged (2.3% of test takers)

70 - 84 - Below average

85 - 114 - Average (68% of test takers)

115 - 129 - Above average

130 - 144 - Gifted (2.3% of test takers)

145 - 159 - Genius (Less than 1% of test takers)

160 - 175 - Extraordinary genius

http://www.free-iqtest.net/iq-score-guide.asp

From the wikipedia article, Ashkenazi Jews have an average IQs - a few points higher than American, Hongkong national average.

I hope you do realize there are many claims which are both entirely wrong and all over the internet?

You can't judge evidence based on a popularity contest.

Jews in general are known to be special. But he's emphasizing on Ashkenazi Jews alone. A quick research shows that their history is quite complex. They were banned from most occupations - restricting them to money lending (banking), health care (doctors), crafting...

You can find some in the link he supplied https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence#...

> The reason scientists aren't saying such things, is because it's pretty clearly wrong.

Scientists, like every members of society, are bound by social rules. Some taboo cannot be broken, and when they are its a career ending move. It’s easier to get founding by inventing 126 genders that don’t exist than saying a few obvious truths, that are backed by science.

It would be nice if you responded to the substance of what I said instead of skipping over it and vaguely refuting a conclusion.