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> It’s not just about learning new facts, of course — it’s about asking questions. Why was a British mystic in Mexico City? How did Spanish-language television

by gwern 1y ago

> It’s not just about learning new facts, of course — it’s about asking questions. Why was a British mystic in Mexico City? How did Spanish-language television evolve in the U.S.? What led someone to invent PLAX or build search tools for financial news decades before Google? Even if you don’t find all the answers, just posing the questions helps you flex the creative muscle that thrives on curiosity and connection. Maybe wait until you have at least 1 anecdote, anywhere in the history of the world, of major creativity from reading an obituary, before recommending it?

hammock 1y ago
Huh? Obits are mini bios, but better than living bios, and more accessible than bestselling bios that make you think you have to be Rockefeller or Lincoln
- gwern 1y ago
  I enjoy reading obituaries, for a number of reasons. (Mostly in the NYT, but also, of course, the famous Economist obits.) But I rarely have ever gotten any creative ideas from them, and I do not recall hearing about anyone else doing so either. And I object in principle to telling silly stories about desirable activities to try to justify them. This is how we get bad ideas like 'Mozart for babies' or 'we should make kids play chess because it correlates with being smarter'. Chess should be played for its intrinsic value, because if it can only be justified by its instrumental value in raising IQ or grades, the case for that was weak, much weaker than its proponents were willing to admit, and has since turned out to be false - but along the way, wasted a lot of time and money and made a lot of kids miserable playing a game they didn't like, and the proponents just made the world a worse place by wasting all those resources, filling the literature with useless analyses and research on chess correlates, and decreasing public trust in science.
flufluflufluffy 1y ago
Goddang, it’s not like they’re giving medical advice or anything, it’s simply about being exposed to novel concepts and ideas, which fosters creativity. You don’t really need “evidence” for this, but even if somehow it’s wrong and reading obituaries either somehow does not increase or decreases creativity, is not like there’s harm in saying “Hey, try reading some obituaries, you might learn some interesting stuff”
- crazygringo 1y ago
  But that's not what they're saying. They're claiming it's a creativity hack, not that you might learn some interesting stuff. That's the entire thesis of the post... which isn't backed up at all.
  - kenjackson 1y ago
    Does there exist anything related to creativity that is backed up with clear data? This article is as convincing as anything else I’ve ever read about increasing creativity.
    - PhearTheCeal 1y ago
      > Complex training courses, meditation and cultural exposure were most effective (gs = 0.66), while the use of cognitive manipulation drugs was least and also non-effective, g = 0.10. The type of training material was also important. For instance, figural methods were more effective in enhancing creativity, and enhancing converging thinking was more effective than enhancing divergent thinking. from https://edoc.hu-berlin.de/items/a8357c0b-1e41-4eff-8ad1-fe3b5355a831 https://edoc.hu-berlin.de/items/a8357c0b-1e41-4eff-8ad1-fe3b... reading the obits might fall under "cultural exposure".
    - gwern 1y ago
      There's lots of legitimate research related to creativity which could be discussed: the existence of the 'incubation effect' and sleep effects, the inefficacy of the popular forms of 'brainstorming' compared to the more painful forms that work*, the 'near adjacent', the 'equal-odds rule', the benefits of cognitive/ideological diversity (and lack of benefits of certain other kinds of diversity), the correlation with intelligence and personality traits like Openness... As opposed to OP. Which adduces so little evidence for the claim about reading obituaries that a rando like me could actually write a more persuasive argument for the benefits of reading obituaries (because I at least wrote one thing tenuously inspired by reading an obituary the other month: https://gwern.net/traffic-lights https://gwern.net/traffic-lights ). Even the most shameless periodical usually tries for at least 3 anecdotes, no matter how dubious and strained, before declaring it the hot new trend or It Is Known fact. * One of Sawyer's research topics, as it happens.
codingdave 1y ago
If it helps them, that seems sufficient reason to share what works for them. I'd say that a more kind critique would be that their advice could be expanded to: "Read anything" in order to get creativity going. But gatekeeping advice unless they can cite "major creativity" that came from it seems harsh.
- crazygringo 1y ago
  When they claim up front that it's a "creativity hack", yes I expect would expect them to back it up. That's not gatekeeping or harsh, it's literally the one job of an article to back up its claim.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
almostgotcaught 1y ago
[flagged]
crazygringo 1y ago
Completely agreed. It's just irresponsibly bad writing to claim "this can boost your creativity!" without even a single example of how it has boosted yours or someone else's. I don't need a scientific study, but surely you can give at least a single anecdotal example? Because if you can't, you honestly shouldn't be writing this in the first place.

by gwern 1y ago

hammock 1y ago

Huh? Obits are mini bios, but better than living bios, and more accessible than bestselling bios that make you think you have to be Rockefeller or Lincoln

gwern 1y ago
I enjoy reading obituaries, for a number of reasons. (Mostly in the NYT, but also, of course, the famous Economist obits.) But I rarely have ever gotten any creative ideas from them, and I do not recall hearing about anyone else doing so either. And I object in principle to telling silly stories about desirable activities to try to justify them. This is how we get bad ideas like 'Mozart for babies' or 'we should make kids play chess because it correlates with being smarter'. Chess should be played for its intrinsic value, because if it can only be justified by its instrumental value in raising IQ or grades, the case for that was weak, much weaker than its proponents were willing to admit, and has since turned out to be false - but along the way, wasted a lot of time and money and made a lot of kids miserable playing a game they didn't like, and the proponents just made the world a worse place by wasting all those resources, filling the literature with useless analyses and research on chess correlates, and decreasing public trust in science.

flufluflufluffy 1y ago

Goddang, it’s not like they’re giving medical advice or anything, it’s simply about being exposed to novel concepts and ideas, which fosters creativity. You don’t really need “evidence” for this, but even if somehow it’s wrong and reading obituaries either somehow does not increase or decreases creativity, is not like there’s harm in saying “Hey, try reading some obituaries, you might learn some interesting stuff”

crazygringo 1y ago
But that's not what they're saying. They're claiming it's a creativity hack, not that you might learn some interesting stuff. That's the entire thesis of the post... which isn't backed up at all.
- kenjackson 1y ago
  Does there exist anything related to creativity that is backed up with clear data? This article is as convincing as anything else I’ve ever read about increasing creativity.
  - PhearTheCeal 1y ago
    > Complex training courses, meditation and cultural exposure were most effective (gs = 0.66), while the use of cognitive manipulation drugs was least and also non-effective, g = 0.10. The type of training material was also important. For instance, figural methods were more effective in enhancing creativity, and enhancing converging thinking was more effective than enhancing divergent thinking. from https://edoc.hu-berlin.de/items/a8357c0b-1e41-4eff-8ad1-fe3b5355a831 https://edoc.hu-berlin.de/items/a8357c0b-1e41-4eff-8ad1-fe3b... reading the obits might fall under "cultural exposure".
  - gwern 1y ago
    There's lots of legitimate research related to creativity which could be discussed: the existence of the 'incubation effect' and sleep effects, the inefficacy of the popular forms of 'brainstorming' compared to the more painful forms that work*, the 'near adjacent', the 'equal-odds rule', the benefits of cognitive/ideological diversity (and lack of benefits of certain other kinds of diversity), the correlation with intelligence and personality traits like Openness... As opposed to OP. Which adduces so little evidence for the claim about reading obituaries that a rando like me could actually write a more persuasive argument for the benefits of reading obituaries (because I at least wrote one thing tenuously inspired by reading an obituary the other month: https://gwern.net/traffic-lights https://gwern.net/traffic-lights ). Even the most shameless periodical usually tries for at least 3 anecdotes, no matter how dubious and strained, before declaring it the hot new trend or It Is Known fact. * One of Sawyer's research topics, as it happens.

codingdave 1y ago

If it helps them, that seems sufficient reason to share what works for them. I'd say that a more kind critique would be that their advice could be expanded to: "Read anything" in order to get creativity going. But gatekeeping advice unless they can cite "major creativity" that came from it seems harsh.

crazygringo 1y ago
When they claim up front that it's a "creativity hack", yes I expect would expect them to back it up. That's not gatekeeping or harsh, it's literally the one job of an article to back up its claim.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]

almostgotcaught 1y ago

[flagged]

crazygringo 1y ago

Completely agreed. It's just irresponsibly bad writing to claim "this can boost your creativity!" without even a single example of how it has boosted yours or someone else's. I don't need a scientific study, but surely you can give at least a single anecdotal example? Because if you can't, you honestly shouldn't be writing this in the first place.