“Today I am firmly convinced that basically and on the whole all creative ideas appear in our youth, in so far as any such are present. I distinguish between the wisdom of age, consisting solely in greater thoroughness and caution due to the experience of a long life, and the genius of youth, which pours out thoughts and ideas with inexhaustible fertility, but cannot for the moment develop them because of their very abundance. It is this youthful genius which provides the building materials and plans for the future, from which a wiser age takes the stones, carves them and completes the edifice, in so far as the so-called wisdom of age has not stifled the genius of youth.”
Personally I would think that it might be plausible that one might form less creatively with respect to their ideals as they get older…
But At the least on average as I would think there arecertaintly perople who remain creative and some perhaps that are more creative later in life with regards to formation of their ideals…though i don’t know…
I think it’s true for a lot of people… though you have the artistic type that seem to be able to maintain that mindset longer.
Creative, or new idea’s, are basicly generated by accident, e.g. random associations, application of existing ideas in context where they don’t naturally belong, linking together information that isn’t obviously related…
Abundance of energy in youth, and energypathways in their brain that aren’t fully formed yet, would cause new idea’s to form more frequently. That’s what one calls a vivid imagination basicly.
As humans interacts with the world more, recurring emotional surges in reaction to certain situations, will strenghten some energypathways, and others will attrophy because a lack of stimulation… and so the older humans get the harder it gets to think outside these habitual patterns. What was once a vivid imagination is now called knowledge.
Knowledge is the more energy efficient, or less wastefull, form of imagination.
Oh, I must be from another planet. I did not start my study of geometry til after my mid 30’s, took ten years to solve the Delian Problem, then went on to discover a whole new geometric language while at 61. I have so much to do in that regard.
I think, that a great deal of what is called creativity, is no more than the gibberish of the masses. By definition, we learn by experience, not by the lack of it.
Some of my early teachers shared your view, and told me that I should start writing when I was young. I disagreed, content was lacking, as is often the case in what is considered great work today. I think the standards have greatly decreased in history, or that history has yet to sift out the weeds of today’s fashion,
I tend to think that one can be creative at any point… and most likely “creative” amounts to ordering things already known in a manner not yet seen or remembered…
My view is that the human mind has a specific job to do, and therefore the output of the human mind is measured against it’s function, not social fashion.
Yet capacity to function can be largely influenced by capacity to be fashionable.
In other words the fashion of the times is a primary contributor to social environment; expectations of behavior and such.
What specific job do you think the human mind has?