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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

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.
    - kenjackson 1y ago
      What was the groundbreaking creative that came out of this?
      - gwern 1y ago
        None. But then, that's still more than OP was able to adduce, as they provided no examples at all, neither groundbreaking nor creative. Which is my point: the bar of 'an anecdote' is so very low. You can provide a anecdote for the creative value of smelling rotten apples in a drawer (Schiller); you can provide an anecdote for the creative value of drinking 50 coffees a day (Balzac); you can provide an anecdote for countless crazy things people have done! But you can't provide an anecdote about reading obituaries?
    - pkkm 1y ago
      > the inefficacy of the popular forms of 'brainstorming' compared to the more painful forms that work Interesting, what's your recommended resource for learning more about this?
      - gwern 1y ago
        I don't know if I'd recommend it, but checking, Sawyer's _Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration_ book hits most of the points I'd cite about brainstorming in its chapter, so you could always start there.
        pkkm 1y ago
        Thanks!
    - dingnuts 1y ago
      [flagged]
    - tomjakubowski 1y ago
      Interesting article, thanks. As a frequent city walker and cyclist, I also spend a lot of time thinking about why drivers run reds. It's rarely as simple as "drivers are too aggressive" or "drivers aren't paying attention", the real cause is often more complicated. I don't know if the concept of "point of no return" is really such an obscure thing. It was part of my standard Illinois drivers education in the mid-00s. Every drive I did with the instructor he'd ask me to call it out when we approached a signal.
  - jerf 1y ago
    I don't think anyone is asking for a double-blind study conducted by accredited scientists from multiple leading institutions on a sample of a quarter-million people across decades getting published on the front page of Science here. We, since I will gladly agree with the criticism and add myself to that side, are asking for one example of the supposedly creativity-inducing action to have even perhaps tangentially produced some sort of creative insight. As an example I would submit that the simple advice of "take a walk/shower" has much better attestation for prompting creativity than "read the obituaries". It hardly seems like a stretch to ask the author to provide even a single example of this achieving something.
  - jldugger 1y ago
    It depends on how you define creativity probably, but a few scientific examples: 1. "Functional fixedness" was explored in a classic Candle Problem[1] found that high drive (ie rewards on a deadline) led to fewer subjects solving the problem. 2. Quality versus quantity. Sadly I can't find the TED talk (likely a decade ago?) that I saw about this but the basic idea: give subjects some kind of design problem (paper airplanes, egg drop, bridge building) and a metric measure them by. Then split them into two groups; one you measure on how many they build and the other on how well their final product is. I think there may have been some intermediate evaluation step as well, wish I could find the original research. Paradoxically, the quantity group wins on quality scores. Lesson being not to focus on perfecting your first solution. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candle_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candle_problem
- Applejinx 1y ago
  I invent new things on a weekly basis for years on end to make a living on Patreon, and literally have to unfailingly hack creativity or starve. (my choices of working in open source leave me no alternative as I don't get persistent revenue streams beyond what I'm able to continue to create.) Everything the author said about creativity checked out from my experience, except that I'm not working in such a generalist field that obituaries light up relevant 'unrelated associations' for me. However, it seems completely plausible from my perspective.

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.
  - kenjackson 1y ago
    What was the groundbreaking creative that came out of this?
    - gwern 1y ago
      None. But then, that's still more than OP was able to adduce, as they provided no examples at all, neither groundbreaking nor creative. Which is my point: the bar of 'an anecdote' is so very low. You can provide a anecdote for the creative value of smelling rotten apples in a drawer (Schiller); you can provide an anecdote for the creative value of drinking 50 coffees a day (Balzac); you can provide an anecdote for countless crazy things people have done! But you can't provide an anecdote about reading obituaries?
  - pkkm 1y ago
    > the inefficacy of the popular forms of 'brainstorming' compared to the more painful forms that work Interesting, what's your recommended resource for learning more about this?
    - gwern 1y ago
      I don't know if I'd recommend it, but checking, Sawyer's _Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration_ book hits most of the points I'd cite about brainstorming in its chapter, so you could always start there.
      - pkkm 1y ago
        Thanks!
  - dingnuts 1y ago
    [flagged]
  - tomjakubowski 1y ago
    Interesting article, thanks. As a frequent city walker and cyclist, I also spend a lot of time thinking about why drivers run reds. It's rarely as simple as "drivers are too aggressive" or "drivers aren't paying attention", the real cause is often more complicated. I don't know if the concept of "point of no return" is really such an obscure thing. It was part of my standard Illinois drivers education in the mid-00s. Every drive I did with the instructor he'd ask me to call it out when we approached a signal.
- jerf 1y ago
  I don't think anyone is asking for a double-blind study conducted by accredited scientists from multiple leading institutions on a sample of a quarter-million people across decades getting published on the front page of Science here. We, since I will gladly agree with the criticism and add myself to that side, are asking for one example of the supposedly creativity-inducing action to have even perhaps tangentially produced some sort of creative insight. As an example I would submit that the simple advice of "take a walk/shower" has much better attestation for prompting creativity than "read the obituaries". It hardly seems like a stretch to ask the author to provide even a single example of this achieving something.
- jldugger 1y ago
  It depends on how you define creativity probably, but a few scientific examples: 1. "Functional fixedness" was explored in a classic Candle Problem[1] found that high drive (ie rewards on a deadline) led to fewer subjects solving the problem. 2. Quality versus quantity. Sadly I can't find the TED talk (likely a decade ago?) that I saw about this but the basic idea: give subjects some kind of design problem (paper airplanes, egg drop, bridge building) and a metric measure them by. Then split them into two groups; one you measure on how many they build and the other on how well their final product is. I think there may have been some intermediate evaluation step as well, wish I could find the original research. Paradoxically, the quantity group wins on quality scores. Lesson being not to focus on perfecting your first solution. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candle_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candle_problem
Applejinx 1y ago
I invent new things on a weekly basis for years on end to make a living on Patreon, and literally have to unfailingly hack creativity or starve. (my choices of working in open source leave me no alternative as I don't get persistent revenue streams beyond what I'm able to continue to create.) Everything the author said about creativity checked out from my experience, except that I'm not working in such a generalist field that obituaries light up relevant 'unrelated associations' for me. However, it seems completely plausible from my perspective.