On creativity

[kaberett]

Some time ago, I asked you what you thought of prompted by "creativity", then utterly failed to engage in conversation or to explain why I was asking.

So: I had been having the kind of evening, you see, where one ends up on a train with one's programmer partner, the both of you dressed in pinstripes, very earnestly attempting to convince aforementioned partner that coding is a creative endeavour... by means of quoting Robert Frost. As it turns out, this gets you pretty strange looks from everyone around you.

And then, more recently, I went on a course entitled Doing Creative Research, which did not change my mind on anything - I was already in firm agreement - but did lead me to Medawar, and the assertion that there is poetry in science, but there is also a lot of book-keeping.

I don't see my science and my poetry as having any fundamental differences. With both I am trying to find new stuff, be that data or forms of expression; with both I rely on intuition to keep my footing, to find my path.

At the Doing Creative Research course we talked, a lot, about the two cultures: about creativity being constructed as flighty, as arty, as distinct from "rigorous" science: about the ways in which scientists shy away from describing themselves as creative because of these perceived connotations of unreliability; which is heartbreaking, really.

So where am I at, at the moment, which what I think creativity is? Making something from nothing, yes, but also: I think I view it as a skillset, as a process, that can be learned; rather than something either intrinsic (a creative person) or extrinsic (a flash of inspiration). And: I think it is about bravery, and trust in oneself, and willingness to take risks in the knowledge that one will be resilient if they do not work as hoped.

Something that That One Gentleman and I disagreed on (or at least, of which I have not yet convinced him) is that making good choices can be in and of itself creative, specifically in the context of writing beautiful and elegant code (but also, really, of anything else). I am thinking of the study I have heard tell of - but never tracked down - that asked amateur and expert chess players to look at a board laid out in front of them and write down all possible moves; the amateurs listed more, because the grandmasters didn't see the bad moves.

I think that probably I wanted to say more on this, but that's what I've the brain for right now; I would love love love to hear your views. <3

Comments

[kaberett]

Hmm, I think I ended up responding to at least the second paragraph in my semi-aside downthread! But certainly if there is more in there that you'd like me to pick up & run with I can give it a go :-)

HURRAH on that very-old-entry of yours: because yes, it is good and important and agreed that it is relevant. And, heh, yes, I am gently amused though also horrified at quite how much I *do* use net very much as something to keep my hands busy while not stopping me thinking about harder stuff...

And thank you also for contributing so thoroughly first time round in this discussion, because it *did* mesh with/contribute to/etc a lot of thinking, as you can hopefully tell :-)

[simont]

though also horrified at quite how much I *do* use net very much as something to keep my hands busy while not stopping me thinking about harder stuff

Well, it might work better for you! I've seen you play Net, and I know you're a lot better at it than I am even now, let alone what I was like when I wrote that old post :-)

(If you're interested, that was more or less the genesis of my puzzle collection: the version of Net I describe having written there is not the one in the collection, but an earlier 'build one to throw away' first attempt written in Python. The next year I rewrote it from the ground up having worked out all the things that were wrong with that version, and that started the collection proper. You'd recognise the original version's graphics, though.)

And thank you also for contributing so thoroughly first time round in this discussion

You're welcome, and I'm glad it was helpful!

As you might have noticed, this is a subject on which I've done some thinking of my own in the past, so when you asked the question my reaction was less 'is there anything I can say?' but 'how can I turn my giant pile of past ponderings into something short and snappy enough to be useful?'. :-)

[kaberett]

Hee, I don't think I was aware that that's where the puzzle collection had started, no! Though I am delighted and furthermore tickled.

I am only too pleased to have a giant pile of past ponderings deposited here - if only so I don't have to actually wade through curating a bunch of other Stuff On The Internet in order to work out what I think - but appreciate you have limited time for typing ;)

(I'm in town until the morning of the 28th, incidentally, if you're around, not that I expect you to be at this time of year! Am starting to plot a visit in January that would actually give me an opportunity to see people in a pub, though.)

[simont]

Sadly, the giant pile of past ponderings doesn't already exist in a helpfully collected form, and it would probably be rather more difficult for me to collect the outlying parts of it than it was to write a usefully condensed summary of the important bits. But if I think of anything else relevant I'll be sure to mention it to you.