3 ms·

What defines creative ability? How about the ability to create a new story? Such 'new stories' always seem to build on old stories, however, and the attempts

What defines creative ability? How about the ability to create a new story? Such 'new stories' always seem to build on old stories, however, and the attempts to create entirely novel creative works that don't relate to past history have never gained much traction. Avant-garde art, who remembers that? People want something to refer to, so it's always the fact that popular new works of art and music are derivative of past works in some sense. Let's consider some of the great works of creative fiction and literature in recent human history, as examples. The Lord of the Rings and Dune come to mind, but if you read all their antecedent sources, you do find in that list the Bible and the Quran, respectively don't you? Now about those ancient cuneiform tablets and their influence on their own derivative works, ahem.

rocketbop 4y ago
It may be that there are only so many basic stories. It makes sense that very old books would contain them. All the archetypal story types can be found in Greek literature. I suppose it isn’t a limit of creativity that stops us creating utterly new stories, as much as that there aren’t really any completely new ones to be told.
crabkin 4y ago
Creative ability isn't an "ability" so much as a modality people who are creative are stuck in. Creative people have an itch to make something. I think I am a creative person and I don't quite even think it has anything to do with the quality of your work when determining whether you are creative or not. I say that because between people, if we want to draw a distinction which would motivate the definition of a creative person vs. someone who isn't, the range of creative impulse is so striking in how binary it is. It seems to me you basically feel the need to do it or you don't. Creativity is the persistent and powerful impulse to do something for the sake of doing it, not necessarily for money or attention, simply for the satisfaction of knowing once this didn't exist and now it does. That's all. Some people are intelligent, lucky, and hard working and may be they are Cervantes, Shakespeare, Beethoven, types, but that has to do with, I'd argue something separate from mere creativity...

rocketbop 4y ago

It may be that there are only so many basic stories. It makes sense that very old books would contain them. All the archetypal story types can be found in Greek literature. I suppose it isn’t a limit of creativity that stops us creating utterly new stories, as much as that there aren’t really any completely new ones to be told.

crabkin 4y ago

Creative ability isn't an "ability" so much as a modality people who are creative are stuck in. Creative people have an itch to make something. I think I am a creative person and I don't quite even think it has anything to do with the quality of your work when determining whether you are creative or not. I say that because between people, if we want to draw a distinction which would motivate the definition of a creative person vs. someone who isn't, the range of creative impulse is so striking in how binary it is. It seems to me you basically feel the need to do it or you don't. Creativity is the persistent and powerful impulse to do something for the sake of doing it, not necessarily for money or attention, simply for the satisfaction of knowing once this didn't exist and now it does. That's all. Some people are intelligent, lucky, and hard working and may be they are Cervantes, Shakespeare, Beethoven, types, but that has to do with, I'd argue something separate from mere creativity...