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Why Creativity Is a Numbers Game (2015)
- m1sta_ 7y agoSome people have the ability to synthesise and evaluate particular ideas faster than average.
- burnte 7y agoThis 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.
- fzzzy 7y agoThe difference between a failed businessperson and a successful one is the successful one tried again.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoThe same could be said about lottery winners.
- bryanrasmussen 7y agoDefinitely 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.
- sysbin 7y agoI 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.
- seppel 7y agoYet, a million monkeys at a million keyboards would not produce the works of Shakespeare.
- TomMarius 7y agoHow much time you gave them?
- saberience 7y agoBut would a million humans at a million keyboards?
- chiefalchemist 7y agoNumbers, 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?"
- chiefalchemist 7y agoMy 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.
- whiddershins 7y agoI 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.
- andrei-mircea 7y agoOut of curiosity, what were some of your observations from working with these creative powerhouses?
- whiddershins 7y agoSo many, But most salient might be the irrational belief that what you are doing matters.
- SquishyPanda23 7y agoOne 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.
- ydb 7y agoCreativity 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.
- adzm 7y agoPersonally 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.
- nsomaru 7y agoPerhaps in that spirit this will interest you: http://www.ramatirtha.org/vol1/inspiration.htm http://www.ramatirtha.org/vol1/inspiration.htm
- mads 7y agoWhich 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.
- indigochill 7y agoTotalitarian 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.
- shi314 7y agoIn 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.
- autokad 7y agothis 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.
- sporkologist 7y agoEdison blah blah blah. Shakespeare blah blah blah. Steve Jobs blah blah. Somehow we have to reduce this genius to a simple algorithm!
- echelon 7y agoTry. Evaluate. Adjust. Repeat. Don't stop.
- codingslave 7y ago"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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence
- wanderingstan 7y ago> 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.
- codingslave 7y agoIt'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
- vezycash 7y ago> 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.
- ghostcluster 7y agoCreativity is a numbers game, and some brains have a higher batting average
- vezycash 7y ago>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.
- dkersten 7y ago> 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).
- smallstepforman 7y agoIt 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.
- Emanation 7y ago"Success is a numbers game," would have been a more appropriate title.
- swsieber 7y agoI'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.
- libertine 7y agoIsn'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.