The Fallacy of Creativity#
Creativity is an inherent ability that people possess, which is innate. If the environment or oneself does not provide enough time to understand and utilize this ability, we may question this ability and fail to notice its role in life. Just as the title suggests, before writing this article, I had the idea that 'creativity lies in creating something that previous generations have not created'. When there is not enough exploration time to use, ideas become limited, and the pursuit of a certain thing becomes obsessive, leading to the naive belief that only a small number of people possess creativity.
Dr. Robert Bilder's Understanding of Creativity and J.P. Guilford's Interpretation of Creativity#
Note
Q: Since someone has already solved this problem before me, even if I come up with a solution, I am not creative because someone has already found the solution.
A: I believe that until you solve the problem yourself, you are exercising your brain,
and establishing unique connections in your brain to solve specific problems,
we can distinguish between these two situations
those creations that change the world may not be considered creative compared to what existed before,
but when we focus on some new unique ideas you generate, and these ideas are valuable to you
then it meets the criteria of creativity, and this is very important for your brain,
because it ensures that you can continue to solve other creative problems
This confirms that our creativity does not have to be linked to 'world-changing creations', but creating world-changing creations is related to human creativity. In J.P. Guilford's research, he divided creativity into multiple parts, where originality addressed my doubts. Our think (new ideas) does not come from mere daydreaming, but is composed of our thought (previous old ideas), yet this does not mean that creative thinking is simply recalling existing knowledge, but rather generating unique and innovative concepts.
References#
- Guilford, J. P. (1950). "Creativity." American Psychologist, 5(9), 444-454. Link (requires access)
- Dr. Robert Bilder on Creativity and Problem Solving | Coursera
- This article is assisted by GPT4o mini for literature search.