> In order to assess the difference between deliberate practice habits between elite-level performers and moderate-level performers, it was also necessary to recruit moderate-level performers.
Hehe :)
Edit: Very interesting read, with nice examples of both successful and unsuccessful artists in various fields. One key trait in becoming successful seems to be willing to put in the effort. This in turn seems to only work if you actually enjoy putting in some effort. It makes one wonder if this can be a learned trait, or whether enjoying something is the actual (proxy) talent someone is born with.
Simone Weil body of work about attention can serve as a good starting point in this case. It is an answer that complements the usual disciplinary approach to effort, where a different kind of relation with the subject is developed where the interaction with it starts to be less effortful and more natural.
Take drawing for instance, which is something I practice actively. The act of putting effort in drawing is quite reductive as drawing is a broad area. Sure you can will yourself into drawing 100 faces and you will invariably be better at drawing faces, but it'll take you nowhere nearer being a more creative artist. But sometimes approaching drawing laterally, that is reaching to other techniques, subjects and skills (like shading, drawing lines, using pens and such...) might give you a broader set of tools that in turn will help increase the chances you will find something that catches your attention and absorbs you into it.
Sure you can get lost in the generics with lateral thinking and never reach a level of masterery that might be necessary for you to grow as an artist, so that is why attention isn't a replacement for discipline. You need both. But bottomline is that you also need to develop a relation with the subject that will reduce resistances, increase satisfaction and make it more likely that you will get absorbed by the task at hand.
When I began studying jazz drumming I was working from a DVD by John Riley. At one point he makes this statement about what it means to be 'gifted' at drumming (but it applies to anything).
He says the 'gift' is less about a physical attribute, and more about a disposition or temperament. I.e., you're so passionate about something that you're willing to spend countless hours, days, years learning to do something you can't do, simply because you find that process the most enjoyable.
I appreciated that perspective so much I snipped it.
Having someone around you who either intentionally or unintentionally creates an environment that makes you want to, and therefor enjoy putting in the effort, is crucial.
I am just finishing up The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle [0] and it has been an interesting short read. In a nutshell, it boils talent down deep practice, ignition, and master coaching.
I am a counter example that rule (though perhaps it is indirectly in agreement). I grew up alone, in the middle of the UK countryside without much regular contact with other kids. My inner monologue grew constant and loud - it acted like a companion, urging me to create things and ideas.
Similar situation. The book does delineate between certain activities and how they're reinforced/guided- so I'm not sure your example is a counter-example. It actually fits the narrative of the book quite well. For example, it uses Futsol as an example of a sport that is self-reinforcing: you do the right things, you keep the ball and get a goal- if not, it gets taken from you. In contrast, a student playing the piano is much more successful with an experienced teacher to guide the rights and wrongs.
There are six human needs, they say: certainty, variety (uncertainty), significance, love, growth and contribution
Cooking alone doesn't check the same boxes. It probably gives you only more "certainty" of being fed, but you're not craving more of that.
Cooking for you and your wife probably gives you some significance (you like being appreciated for making a nice meal), love and a sense of contribution. Way more satisfying!
Going deeper it can mean anything from having a person you want to impress, a parent that you just can't ever seem to make proud, or seeing someone succeed their way out of your impoverished upbringing.
It's helpful to know the dissertation hails from UTexas' department of advertising. In that context, 'creativity' is not about artists using imagination, cognition, and innovation to surprise or enlighten or edify. It's about creating better spam.
That's a bit harsh. Note that studying advertising might differ significantly from practicing it. For all you know, there could be a PhD out there researching the moral implications of Facebook's advertising practices during the 2010s.
I have actually read most of the dissertation today, and it sure is about the creativity you reject it to be about.
A) love the overall thesis/focus. The key points seem solid.
B) I’m not sure how scientific this is. “We looked for instances of deliberate practice and found some” seems more like self-help advice than rigorous sociology? Or… anthropology? It certainly isn’t psychology, but funnily enough it doesn’t actually say what degree this was for.
C) The theory section needed a much more serious engagement with the philosophy discussed, rather than just taking 1-2 sources on each 800y period as gospel. Let’s just say that not all Ancients thought nature was the peak of creativity, and that the doctrine of the Catholic Church wasn’t the only thing going on 400-1600, even if we restrict the view to Europe. Also desperately needs more engagement with postmodern conceptions of creativity, given that they basically dominate many parts of the “fine art” world to this day!
Thanks, was just coming back to edit that in! Should’ve known HN would get it faster.
That does explain my negative reaction to the method — if I had to pick a single archenemy among the modern academies, Advertising would likely win top billing! I mean, I just now learned that it exists at all, which doesn’t help. I guess PhD’s in Manipulation wouldn’t look nearly as good on the mantle…
"[My parents and I] were enthralled by the same music, but it showed us different things. I listened to Slash’s flamboyant, searching guitar solo on “November Rain” and heard liberation, a suggestion that crazed, committed vision could carry you away, somewhere else. To my parents, Slash’s greatness was evidence of virtuoso skill, the product of thousands of hours of study and practice."
While deliberate practice is undoubtedly crucial for developing creativity and expertise, I think there's an important nuance we often overlook - the role of diverse experiences and cross-pollination of ideas.
Deliberate practice helps refine skills and deepen domain knowledge, but breakthrough creativity often comes from making unexpected connections between disparate fields. Some of history's most creative figures - like Leonardo da Vinci or Benjamin Franklin - were polymaths who excelled in multiple domains.
This! Most of my creativity in private projects stems from having build a broad space of knowledge/experiences. Having tinkered with a lot of different disconnected things really helps me find interesting bits to combine in a new and creative way that I never had imagined before :)
> the role of diverse experiences and cross-pollination of ideas
Add to this: giving room for ideas to grow: the more you wait, the more diverse and numerous the life experiences, all of them having the potential to shape those uncrystallized ideas.
Sure, but so can pure randomness, for the same reason. It is creative in the literal sense, but not in the ineffable sense that humans tend to describe in humans.
Well put! Well, the first sentence is -- I think there's ample evidence that chatbots are creative in the same manner as humans, for the simple reason that they speak coherently. I'm sure we all remember pre-2023 chatbots, which were cute but ultimately produced gibberish; the current chatbots reach the same limits if given a hard enough task, which I think is fantastic evidence that they are ineffably creative before that limit.
In Chomsky's words, quoting Wilhelm von Humboldt:
Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied. Even the interpretation and use of words involves a process of free creation. The normal use of language and the acquisition of language depend on what Humboldt calls the fixed form of language, a system of generative processes that is rooted in the nature of the human mind and constrains but does not determine the free creations of normal intelligence or, at a higher and more original level, of the great writer or thinker...
The many modern critics who sense an inconsistency in the belief that free creation takes place within – presupposes, in fact – a system of constraints and governing principles are quite mistaken; unless, of course, they speak of “contradiction” in the loose and metaphoric sense of Schelling, when he writes that “without the contradiction of necessity and freedom not only philosophy but every nobler ambition of the spirit would sink to that death which is peculiar to those sciences in which that contradiction serves no function.” Without this tension between necessity and freedom, rule and choice, there can be no creativity, no communication, no meaningful acts at all.
You're absolutely right - and to identify the creation within randomness is also a form of creativity. Not all humans create (and identify) with the same methodologies!
In hindsight, I wish I’d included the disclaimer that I have creative pursuits (of the ineffable variety) which leverage creative tools in the more literal sense (not AI, not purely random either). I don’t mean to disparage the entire class of machine-generated creation per se.
But I do think that there is an important distinction between incorporating it in some form into a person’s expression, versus being the whole of the expression. Even if that incorporation is mere curation, at least that imbues some semblance of meaning, to someone capable of experiencing meaning.
And perhaps that’s a snobbish perspective. Maybe it deserves reexamination.
It's unfortunately very hard to isolate creativity from many competing and interfering aspects. Is an artist creative or are they successful in a field where by tradition every piece must be different (say, music videos). Is an engineer creative because they live in a discipline of severe constraints (say, spacecraft at the edge of the possible). A known issue for artists is having a recognized body of work: many new clients now want some of THAT - and not the precursors of the next body of work, so the artist feels the pressure to produce more of THAT. Is creativity only recognized (and so, favored) when it's followed by success? What about mechanical aspects of creativity - like good executive skills / habits? How about helps from the environment: constraints are one, but also early viewers, managers, critiques, partners that are encouraging - in the right way. "Practice"?! In what? "Taste" is a known aspect with the recognition that it can be hard on newcomers who may already have "good taste" but not yet the technical, gestural skill to produce and meet that bar. Teachers (in all meanings) that make sense and are capable of explaining how they or others operate. And on and on.
So I have been trying to focus on specific antagonists. Recognizing what forms of creativity matter to me; Solving for "block"; Solving for "time".
It will take some time to read the 129 pages before I come to any conclusion, but I can say one thing for sure, and those who know what deliberate practice is, will agree with me.
Deliberate practice is a lonely process, which can only be accomplished with courage, dedication and grit whether you have a mentor/coach/master or not.
I think anyone that has undertaken an art form of any sort knows that it is all down to practice. There's just different levels of dedication. Charlie Parker famously was thrown out of a jam session in Kansas City as a teenager by Jo Jones (who threw a cymbal at him), and decided to spend the next 3-4 years practicing 12-15 hours per day. There's a retreat called chilla [1] that some South Asian musicians do which is 40 days of isolation and intensive practice. I saw a video of Mike Tyson helping train a young boxer recently and at the beginning he says: "You know, it has nothing to do with styles or size. It's all about the moral of the fighter. How important is it to you? Is it more important than breathing? Is it more important than eating? It's up to the individual."
A great mentor is crucial too. I know for myself having my music teacher listen and force me to not move on from what I'm working on is necessary. Having my Muay Thai trainer throw down his pads and silently demonstrate what I need to embody is invaluable. My meditation teacher pointing out my misunderstandings. Etc.
I think that deiliberate practice is needed to refine and improve the execution of actual physicaly tangeble artifacts of the creative impulse,but the creative impulse comes first
unbiden and often the "deiliberate practice" is anything but,and is rather an unstopable compulsion
different levels and outcomes,d8fferent drives
and aims and also must be recognised as an almost universal drive,that exists in other species
bower birds and chimp fads "stick in ear" is my
favorite,which I actualy practice occasionaly
the unique tribal hunting practices of killer whale pods,some of which are truely extreem
like the wave surfing onto a beach to grab a seal
and the wiggle back into the ocean
thinking that up was an exceptiinaly creative process
so...
One of the great variables is the manner of practice. Every so-called virtuoso guitar player has spent thousands of hours with their hands on the instrument. But where one such celebrity may have used a 10-hour-per-day practice routine in their teens, another may instead have taken drugs then listened to music and jammed with his like-minded friends at every opportunity. Very different forms of expertise results.
Quality of practice is another factor. It's possible to become very good at doing things the wrong way, then belatedly realise that progress has been unintentionally stunted. And even that is not clear-cut. Sometimes 'the wrong way' is lauded as creative discovery, and other times simply as reduced competence.
Many creative pursuits are compound skills, and individual skill elements must work together effectively. Many types of practice advice describe isolating one skill element to improve it, but if overdone that leads to a bad outcome, where that skill dominates and overall performance is blocked.
As a guitar player who is modestly ok at basic jazz, all the pattern-based rock stuff I spent years on is now an impediment. I have to unlearn it and approach the instrument like a beginner, but with a different intention.
So in some ways I’m reversing out of a cul de sac.
> It's possible to become very good at doing things the wrong way, then belatedly realise that progress has been unintentionally stunted.
And sometimes when that happens, I've seen people say "I'll just stick with this way, since I think my skills would dip too much for too long while re-learning this technique the 'right' way."
I always believed that while creativity can be developed through focus and practice, the pace of learning varies from person to person. In general, creative people are highly intelligent, work with tremendous focus and are dedicated individuals.
Perhaps. Other artists work in the very narrow direction THEY like and can manage technically - so of course they look like they have focus! Of course they look like they are dedicated to their art. But perhaps too it's the only thing they can do and they stumbled on something that has an audience. That does not mean they aren't amazing ... at that. That does not mean their art is not significant. That doesn't mean that their specific creativity is not worthy.
It also doesn't mean that their creativity's mode of operation isn't totally irrelevant to some other person. Might be. Might not.
> Elite level performers use deliberate practice and credit hard work to their success instead of talent.
> Mediocre performers don't use deliberate practice and credit talent to their success.
The author then implies that deliberate practice and hard work are the key to success. But it could also be the case that elite level performers _are_ talented and they achieve success by exploiting that talent through hard work, while mediocre performers wouldn't achieve the same level of success even if they worked as hard.
Creativity comes from focusing on small piece of deliberate practice...
An example, ask any well known guitar player....their greatest rift came from practicing some chord progression and noticing something different about it...the rift from Sweet Child was discovered that way....
speaking from experience
creativity is a condition and or compulsion
often associated with basic functional deficits
can it be channeled,directed,optimised,and comodified?
sometimes
for a while
Yes! And it would be super useful if the rest of the population could benefit from insights extracted from "them". Currently humanity operates on creativity and other forms of knowledge work. There is a lot of value in "better creativity" or "more exploitable creativity".
Speaking as a creative monster, I never practiced. I learned to draw by drawing, program by programming etc. Always because I was into it. Never because I was into a dream of future mastery.
I didn't downvote that comment when you commented, but I did it now.
I don't come to HN to read the auto-generated output of a system. If I wanted that I could generate the result myself. I come to HN because I'm interested in what people in the community have to say.
Showing up to a thread and saying "this is what an LLM generated" does not "gratify my intellectual curiosity" (per the FAQ) and, in my opinion, is not a practice to be encouraged.
Oh damn do I love a metadiscussion! I appreciate you taking a stand for quality discourse, and I agree 100% on your basic motivations, but I think this is overly dismissive.
I'd say an audio discussion of this 100+ page dissertation is directly gratifying my intellectual curiosity, if I'm someone who is interested but doesn't have time to skim 100+ pages. And yeah anyone could figure out how to do such a thing, but a) most people don't even know it's possible yet, b) it presumably takes some amount of expertise and/or paid credits, and c) it saves people time. I'd consider it to be pretty similar to the usual archive link comments, in that way; anyone could probably find it themselves, but they might not even think to try.
Finally, if I had to quote any one part of the guidelines to support my "LLMs are welcome on HN" claim:
Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. That tramples curiosity.
The guidelines don't mention any sort of institutionalized human-centric speciesism, so I'd say it's fair game. As my fave philosopher David Gunkel says: #RobotRights ;)
Obviously you're 100% correct to downvote a comment you think is distracting, I just thought I'd share my response on the broader question.
I can't respond to the comment above, b/c it's already been flagged, but I just wanted to say that I was surprised with the quality of the output as well.
I know it's not magic. I know it's not sentient. I know it's not perfect. BUT IT'S IMPRESSIVE, and things like this demonstrate the huge leap that has happened in computing possibilities, and I'm frustrated that it gets flagged because some people are triggered by their "AI bad... human good" false dichotomy.
These kind of studies are dubious. The PhD report could have been generated by an LLM in about a day, and no one would know any better.
It works like this:
Take any hypothesis. And have a lot of verbiage around it with dubious experiments to "statistically" validate it. and write a giant report which would eventually turn into a book.
Steve Pinker and his likes excel in this kind of stuff. Psychology/Sociology and sometimes economics are filled with these sorts of studies.
It is more persuation than science.
And one could could argue that science itself is a certain kind of persuation.
Your comment adds nothing to the discussion, reveals your prejudice against social science, and could be copied and pasted anytime a non-rigorous subject comes up. I'm actually interested in criticisms of this work, but your comment doesn't even rise to that level.
But Bohm's "On Creativity", to me presents a much deeper "philosophical" take on a) what is creativity and b) how to foster it. And I dont see it referenced in this text at all.
Again, since this is about persuation, it is what the reader wants to believe.
There are (probably) several billion works on creativity. Just reading and listing your own sources of inspiration on creativity is quite the endheavor. And that is not going to be exhaustive even in a PhD thesis. I'll give leaway there - on the contrary, mine THEIR list for stuff I missed.
fair take, but my view these days is the following.
there is way too much information-garbage floating around.
hence I try to stick to time-tested classics particularly when it comes to certain topics. now, your time-tested classic may be different from mine and certainly, i want to see if there are things I missed, and hence I mentioned Bohm's work, as something the author of this PhD missed.
End of the day, there are many belief systems that we human hold onto, but we need a method to settle opinion.
And science happens to be a certain kind of a method for settling opinion.
CS Peirce wrote about it so beautifully in his 1877 essay: "On the fixation of belief". go read it. here is a link saving you a google search. https://www.peirce.org/writings/p107.html
Hehe :)
Edit: Very interesting read, with nice examples of both successful and unsuccessful artists in various fields. One key trait in becoming successful seems to be willing to put in the effort. This in turn seems to only work if you actually enjoy putting in some effort. It makes one wonder if this can be a learned trait, or whether enjoying something is the actual (proxy) talent someone is born with.