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Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi · 3 HN comments
HN Books has aggregated all Hacker News stories and comments that mention "Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
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Amazon Summary
The classic study of the creative process from the bestselling author of Flow Creativity is about capturing those moments that make life worth living. Legendary psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (“The leading researcher into ‘flow states.’”  — Newsweek) reveals what leads to these moments—be it the excitement of the artist at the easel or the scientist in the lab—so that this knowledge can be used to enrich people's lives. Drawing on nearly one hundred interviews with exceptional people, from biologists and physicists, to politicians and business leaders, to poets and artists, as well as his thirty years of research on the subject, Csikszentmihalyi uses his famous flow theory to explore the creative process. He discusses such ideas as why creative individuals are often seen as selfish and arrogant, and why the "tortured genius" is largely a myth. Most important, he explains why creativity needs to be cultivated and is necessary for the future of our country, if not the world.
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Hacker News Stories and Comments

All the comments and stories posted to Hacker News that reference this book.
I dislike this. I almost hate it, but it at least raises interesting questions.

The reasoning is almost entirely post-hoc. He observes many successful people and their similarities and then claims "I have now told you how to succeed." p(success | trait) != p(trait | success). Hindsight bias is at play.

He makes other weird statements: "you are automatically condemned to waste the rest of your life (see Einstein above)." Mr. Hamming is a difficult guy to please.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi studied many successful individuals in a systematic way and acknowledged the inherent problems with this approach. Read his book instead of this: https://www.amazon.com/Creativity-Flow-Psychology-Discovery-...

Finally: "Those who have done really great things generally report, privately, that it is better than wine, the opposite sex, and song put together."

This is strongly contradicted by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's evidence. Nearly everyone he talked to (many Nobel Laureates among them) said their greatest achievement was raising a family or something in personal life. I can't claim this generalizes, but I can provide it as a stark counterexample to Hamming's claim.

dunkelheit
> This is strongly contradicted by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's evidence. Nearly everyone he talked to (many Nobel Laureates among them) said their greatest achievement was raising a family or something in personal life. I can't claim this generalizes, but I can provide it as a stark counterexample to Hamming's claim.

If this proves anything, it is that self-reporting is dangerously misleading and the answers depend very much on who is asking.

segmondy
Read it again till it sinks in, also find "You and your research" and read.

BTW, don't forget this

"There is another trait that took me many years to notice, and that is the ability to tolerate ambiguity. Most people want to believe what they learn is the truth: there are a few people who doubt everything. If you believe too much then you are not likely to find the essentially new view that transforms a field, and if you doubt too much you will not be able to do much at all. It is a fine balance between believing what you learn and at the same time doubting things. Great steps forward usually involve a change of viewpoint to outside the standard ones in the field. "

I suspect you are suffering from this. The only place I look for absolute truth is mathematics. When people write, you must pull out and find your own truth. Don't be upset about it if it doesn't fit your thinking. It's entirely possible to disagree with all of it and yet find it incredible useful.

chplushsieh
Finally: "Those who have done really great things generally report, privately, that it is better than wine, the opposite sex, and song put together." This is strongly contradicted by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's evidence. Nearly everyone he talked to (many Nobel Laureates among them) said their greatest achievement was raising a family or something in personal life.

Strictly speaking, these two claims don't contradict each other. Talking to a book writer/researcher in an interview doesn't count as talking privately.

Nomentatus
Not a contradiction "best high" and "greatest achievement" are rarely the same thing.
AndrewKemendo
I dislike this. I almost hate it...

Why? Because you think it's poorly argued or because it challenges the idea that the family is not the ultimate reward?

marmaduke
You seem to reading yourself into the parents post: they say adhoc reasoning and hand waving are the reasons, and don't suggest family significantly.
AndrewKemendo
Hmm, well they did say at the end...

Nearly everyone he talked to (many Nobel Laureates among them) said their greatest achievement was raising a family or something in personal life.

So I think it's a relevant question if truncated in spirit for brevity.

antisocial
Happy to see Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi mentioned here. IMO, he and his work are underrated. I haven't read the original post by Hamming, but I have read one and a half books by Csikszentmihalyi and I am a better person for doing so.
In grad school I took a class on creativity from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi[1]. He described a creative idea as something that stands apart from other ideas in the same basket.

Think of a large pile of plain ol' red bricks. Now show that pile ask 100 people who know nothing about bricks the question "what can yo do with this pile of bricks?" If 99 people say "build a worker computer by <brick-to-computer-process>", and 1 person says "build a house", then "build a house" is the most creative answer in that sample.

Writing a SQL ad that was basically just a simple query using SELECT, FROM, WHERE. If 100 SQL writers wrote an ad, I don't think mine would have been all that creative, using the definition mentioned above. But as the only SQL-flavored ad in the personals section, it stood out as creative :)

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Creativity-Flow-Psychology-Discovery-...

qwertyuiop924
Yes. However, there is a difference between creative and good: Most recruiter emails don't look like what OP got. But that doesn't make that one good.

Yours seems to have been good.

I would suggest Creativity: The Psychology of Discovery and Invention by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi [1]

I have not read the book yet but it is on my reading list. I'm currently going through "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience" [2] by the same author and it is illuminating to see the author examine a simple process such as enjoying a walk and reveal the intricate interplay of our consciousness, attention and self.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Creativity-Psychology-Discovery-Mihaly...

[2] http://www.amazon.com/Flow-Psychology-Experience-Mihaly-Csik...

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