[extropy-chat] Not necessary smarter, just faster?

[Robert Bradbury]

On 5/11/06, Anne-Marie Taylor <femmechakra at yahoo.ca> wrote:

Anna,

Eugen, I think is just trying to make the point that the physical processes
in your brain aren't particularly "creative" -- what they are doing is
dictated by the laws of physics.

Spike was pointing out that a chess playing computer (which is following
preprogrammed strategies) can exhibit "behaviors" that seem to be
"creative".

The problem tends to revolve around what people do or do not consider to be
creative..  Think of it in terms of Art or Literature -- were impressionism
or cubism or any of the other "-isms" creative?  Was Falkner who could craft
really complex sentences or Hemingway who could write really simple (but
meaningful) ones more creative?

In many cases creativity involves something which is novel -- a new way of
looking at the same things or a new way of seeing something.  I.e. it is
"outside" of the classical box (patterns) that people are used to thinking
with.  Einstein's work tends to be so amazing because much of it was so far
ahead of where everyone else was that it stretched from the outside of the
left side of the box to the outside of the right side (it literally
redefined the box).

So creativity involves a couple of things -- being willing to think along
unconventional lines and being able to recognize some of those lines as
being particularly interesting or useful.  (Think of all of the art which
people have created which is very unusual and interesting to them but nobody
else happens to see it the way they see it -- then one is viewed as creative
leaning towards "wierd" rather than creative leaning towards brilliance.)

If one can entertain outside of the box thoughts faster and discard the
uninteresting and/or non-useful thoughts faster then one would probably be
perceived as being more creative.  I suspect most people who are labeled
creative are those who first manage to see or understand something and tend
to leave the audience wondering "Why didn't I think of that?"

Robert
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