Knowledge vs Creativity

In the age of information sciences, the most valuable asset is knowledge, which is a creation of human imagination and creativity. We were among the last to comprehend this truth and we will be paying for this oversight for many years to come.

                    --- Mikhail Gorbachev, 1990

Intelligence, creativity and genius are generally regarded as highly valuable assets of the human mind. Yet what is knowledge, what is creativity, and what is the relationship between the two? In fact, the two are intertwined. Generally speaking, greater amounts of knowledge lead to a greater creative capacity. The more an artist has experienced different emotions in life, the better paintings he can create. The more a creative writer has known different kinds of people, the more interesting and sophisticated stories they can write. Ultimately, knowledge feeds creativity.

Knowledge can commonly be defined as the expertise and skills acquired through experience and education. The acquisition of knowledge involves complex rational processes which include: learning, perception, communication, association and reasoning. The term knowledge can also be related to the understanding of a subject with the ability to use it for a specific purpose. A person with a knowledgeable brain is able to tackle a problem in an efficient and timely matter in order to find an appropriate set of rules, and derive a solution. To achieve such a level of expertise, one must be subject to a lifelong training/learning and must possess strong motivational factors. The following aspects can also increase one’s capacity for knowledge;  

1. Problem solving:  the power of the human mind to process information and solve problems.
2. Processing power: the raw nimbleness and agility of the human mind to quickly learn new things, think logically, solve puzzles and show uncanny wit.

Knowledge can be broken down into two further subcategories. Factual knowledge is made of facts, whereas inferential knowledge stems from sets of rules. Rules and procedures can be applied to facts to produce more facts, assertions, statements, formulas, etc. In the course of problem solving, the human brain will often develop new rules and store them in memory. These will form a highly valuable component of one’s knowledge and will decide on their creative powers. Rene Descartes once quoted, "Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems".

Creativity on the other hand is the mental process involving the ability to generate new ideas that are both highly innovative as well as highly useful. Creativity involves two processes: thinking, then producing. A new idea will not be called creative unless it is quite hard to come by. Creativity can be molded, enhanced and directed. Combined with a set of direction questions, it can be used by writers or managers to generate new ideas; either individually or in a brainstorming group. The underlying assumption is that once you intensely focus on a subject and look at it from most unusual directions, you will be able to massively produce new associations and generate new quality. All creative individuals conceive new ideas faster than they can be utilized and can only hope to implement a fraction of the ideas. Some people are born with highly creative minds. They are privileged from the onset, but according to studies they are also more likely to suffer from side-effects of creativity such as inattention, anxiety, depression, etc. Ordinary brains can learn to stimulate and extinguish creativity through the following preconditions;

• Suitable state of mind: alert, excited, motivated
• Conductive social environment: minimum irrelevant interference and maximum creative stimulation (creative and incremental reading, brainstorming, etc.)
• Time: give time for an idea to grow and the greater the likelihood of a breakthrough association
• Motivation: the vicious circle of bad motivations comes from the fact that once motivation doesn’t exist, you have no motivation to develop it. Motivation for a creative mindset comes from a need to come up with a solution and an understanding of self-discipline techniques.

• Curiosity: lifelong learning is a prerequisite for creativity. The mind must curiously stray into unexplored paths when new associations and unexpected solutions can be found. The more curiosity you find in your mind, the better your creative prospects.
• Knowledge: the more knowledge you throw at a problem, the more new ideas and associations you will be able to generate.

In short, our creative system can be improved by adding speed through stimulation of parallel processing. The shortest formula for enhanced creativity is: quiet, focus, curiosity, understanding the creative process, and inter-disciplinary knowledge. To maximize individual creativity, a person also needs access to a diversity of skills and expertise. The more diverse people a person can call on, the better the opportunities for knowledge creation. A person who has many colleagues drawn from one social circle will not access as much diversity of ideas as a person who is connected to the same number of people drawn from different disciplines, departments and social circles. Interactive creativity calls for the successful synthesis of different perspectives that creates something new. The pursuit of lifelong learning, as well as the ability to communicate and work collectively, has the capacity to lift the human potential to unimaginable levels.