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Creativity Fundamentally Comes From Memorization

shwin.co · 1,477 words · saved by 1 readers

The inspirational lightning bolt writers and artists experience can't happen unless they know how to write or draw. A pun can't be created unless the author sees the similarity between one word and another they already know. A DJ can't mashup two songs unless they're familiar with both. By definition, you can't even be certain of novelty without familiarity of existing works. Creativity comes to those who have internalized the patterns of their art -- they can see the connection or novelty because it's all in their head. Therefore autonomy enables creativity, and a system helps achieve autonomy quicker. Some time back I discovered a method for learning anything quickly. It involved two steps: For many that remember school, this won't sound novel. Yet what's often missed is the application beyond academic subjects: Even academically, while older western curriculums seemed to emphasize memorization, new school teaching seems to have shifted towards understanding-based, which is just a me

July 2024 Update : After hitting Hacker News' front page, apart from the many nice messages (much appreciated), I was surprised to see most of the criticism was: contesting the definition of 'memorization', for which there is apparently a strong negative connotation people who mistook me as dismissing creativity as being mere memorization In which case I'm pretty pleased, the strongest criticism (imo) being the one claiming this post was "semi-obvious". Funnily enough, the cultural pushback to this concept is what makes it semi-interesting to say in the first place. Shoutout to Michael who lin

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