May 8th, 2010 / 12:50 pm
Random

The “Novelty” of Creativity

Here‘s an article at NYTimes about a dude mapping creativity in the brain. It’s a moderately interesting read. What caught my eye, however, was his working definition of creativity, which is noted as the “common definition of creativity”: the ability to combine novelty and usefulness in a particular social context.

The OED defines creativity as: Creative power or faculty; ability to create.

So, is creativity “novel”? I have some difficulty balancing the concept of creativity with “novelty,” which the OED defines as: “1a. Something new, not previously experienced, unusual, or unfamiliar; a novel thing.” BUT, but, then, later, “1e.  An often useless or trivial but decorative or amusing object, esp. one relying for its appeal on the newness of its design.” This definition is much more pejorative. There’s something extremely problematic about thinking of creativity as a combination of “novelty” and “usefulness,” which the OED defines as: “Having the ability or qualities to bring about good, advantage, benefit, etc.; helpful for any purpose; serviceable.”

To say that creativity is a balancing of novelty and usefulness implies that what is novel (here, insert “new” rather than “trivial”) is inherently useless. How is newness or innovation useless? Furthermore, if this definition the NYT uses is in fact the “accepted” definition, what does this say about creativity as a whole?

14 Comments

  1. demi-puppet

      The older (and possibly dated) definition of creativity was I think connected to the strict definition of ‘imagination’: the generation of original ( or “novel”) ideas in the same way that the imagination ostensibly produces sense impressions w/o sensory input. (an original something called forth from nothing, or perhaps channeled from some original divine source)

      The current definition of creativity is deflating into something more like ‘flexibility,’ or the willingness to act in somewhat non-orthodox ways. (I’m thinking here of phrases like “creative cleaning,” where what you’re doing is not so much creating as it is choosing an already extant alternative, a “fun” way of cleaning. [whereas maybe the creative cleaner is attempting to create completely unheard of modes of cleaning])

      I think maybe “novelty and usefulness” could be amended to “invention and tradition.”

  2. demi-puppet

      Having just read the article, I don’t know if what they’re testing for is really creativity, or if it is, I’m not sure it represents anything more than creativity in its most superficial sense. Arbitrary exercises run in a couple hours in a lab don’t seem, IMO, to measure creativity, because it ignores the fact that a) for many creators their creativity is very individualized and “specialized,” such that the gifted poet is not very interested in the uses of a brick; and b) that creativity is often the result of hours and hours of solitary trial-and-error and gestation.

      I almost feel like you would have to measure the brain activity of a creator at work of the course of a month or so to get a true feel for creativity at work in the brain.

  3. Lily Hoang

      The article itself is hardly worth reading, given its many problems, which you have pointed out. My questioning has less to do with the article and how they’re trying to gage creativity and much more to do with their definition of creativity. Because I find the premise so problematic, I find little credence in the conclusions, much less the “scientific findings.”

  4. Tim Horvath

      Thanks for posting this, Lily. I don’t think that the article is useless, though. For one thing, even though the trad definition of creativity cited above is outdated, the author readily admits as much, critiquing it through Kuonios, another researcher, fairly immediately. Kuonios’s definition, “the ability to restructure one’s understanding of a situation in a nonobvious way” is a bit loose, but as a writer that’s a looseness I want and insist on (if I was a scientist I might be a little frustrated by it). And even Dr. Jung, who is attributed the more old school definition, doesn’t see creativity as any single, easily definable thing. But as scientific studies go, this seems pretty damned cool. I mean not only did the treat creativity as a multifaceted thing, but they had people “imagine people could instantly change their sex, or imagine clouds had strings. What would be the implications?” That’s yielding some serious control over labyrinth design to your rats, and verges on asking them to write fiction. Yes, demi-puppet, you’re totally right that this imposes artificial constraints that ignore how an artist would develop habits over time, how rhythms emerge, how a larger trajectory or vision comes into being. But still…this isn’t null and void. In fact, the constraints don’t seem all that different from what 48 Hours magazine is getting at by trying to assemble a journal in that short amount of time. It’s saying that something cool and creative can happen even under strict limits, and that this bears some relation to what happens over longer intervals of time.

  5. demi-puppet

      The older (and possibly dated) definition of creativity was I think connected to the strict definition of ‘imagination’: the generation of original ( or “novel”) ideas in the same way that the imagination ostensibly produces sense impressions w/o sensory input. (an original something called forth from nothing, or perhaps channeled from some original divine source)

      The current definition of creativity is deflating into something more like ‘flexibility,’ or the willingness to act in somewhat non-orthodox ways. (I’m thinking here of phrases like “creative cleaning,” where what you’re doing is not so much creating as it is choosing an already extant alternative, a “fun” way of cleaning. [whereas maybe the creative cleaner is attempting to create completely unheard of modes of cleaning])

      I think maybe “novelty and usefulness” could be amended to “invention and tradition.”

  6. demi-puppet

      Having just read the article, I don’t know if what they’re testing for is really creativity, or if it is, I’m not sure it represents anything more than creativity in its most superficial sense. Arbitrary exercises run in a couple hours in a lab don’t seem, IMO, to measure creativity, because it ignores the fact that a) for many creators their creativity is very individualized and “specialized,” such that the gifted poet is not very interested in the uses of a brick; and b) that creativity is often the result of hours and hours of solitary trial-and-error and gestation.

      I almost feel like you would have to measure the brain activity of a creator at work of the course of a month or so to get a true feel for creativity at work in the brain.

  7. lily hoang

      The article itself is hardly worth reading, given its many problems, which you have pointed out. My questioning has less to do with the article and how they’re trying to gage creativity and much more to do with their definition of creativity. Because I find the premise so problematic, I find little credence in the conclusions, much less the “scientific findings.”

  8. mimi
  9. Tim Horvath

      Thanks for posting this, Lily. I don’t think that the article is useless, though. For one thing, even though the trad definition of creativity cited above is outdated, the author readily admits as much, critiquing it through Kuonios, another researcher, fairly immediately. Kuonios’s definition, “the ability to restructure one’s understanding of a situation in a nonobvious way” is a bit loose, but as a writer that’s a looseness I want and insist on (if I was a scientist I might be a little frustrated by it). And even Dr. Jung, who is attributed the more old school definition, doesn’t see creativity as any single, easily definable thing. But as scientific studies go, this seems pretty damned cool. I mean not only did the treat creativity as a multifaceted thing, but they had people “imagine people could instantly change their sex, or imagine clouds had strings. What would be the implications?” That’s yielding some serious control over labyrinth design to your rats, and verges on asking them to write fiction. Yes, demi-puppet, you’re totally right that this imposes artificial constraints that ignore how an artist would develop habits over time, how rhythms emerge, how a larger trajectory or vision comes into being. But still…this isn’t null and void. In fact, the constraints don’t seem all that different from what 48 Hours magazine is getting at by trying to assemble a journal in that short amount of time. It’s saying that something cool and creative can happen even under strict limits, and that this bears some relation to what happens over longer intervals of time.

  10. demi-puppet

      I think it’s cool, too. Scientific research on creativity fascinates me. I was mostly making suggestions, because I’m not convinced that what goes on in a person’s brain when they’re figuring out new uses for a brick is even remotely similar to what goes on in the mind of someone deeply enmeshed in their craft. But maybe it is; I’m no scientist. In general, I agree with you. I love this stuff.

  11. mimi
  12. demi-puppet

      I think it’s cool, too. Scientific research on creativity fascinates me. I was mostly making suggestions, because I’m not convinced that what goes on in a person’s brain when they’re figuring out new uses for a brick is even remotely similar to what goes on in the mind of someone deeply enmeshed in their craft. But maybe it is; I’m no scientist. In general, I agree with you. I love this stuff.

  13. alan

      “To say that creativity is a balancing of novelty and usefulness implies that what is novel… is inherently useless. How is newness or innovation useless?”

      Huh? It didn’t say “balancing”; it said “combining.” What is new isn’t necessarily useful but can be. Creativity is here being defined as the ability to come up with something that is both new and useful.

  14. alan

      “To say that creativity is a balancing of novelty and usefulness implies that what is novel… is inherently useless. How is newness or innovation useless?”

      Huh? It didn’t say “balancing”; it said “combining.” What is new isn’t necessarily useful but can be. Creativity is here being defined as the ability to come up with something that is both new and useful.