[OrbitRock]

Maybe all creativity is just mimics who repeat things and add a little bit of variation.

I think the book Steal Like an Artist addresses this.

[cambalache]

Or maybe it isnt, and the great breakthroughs are the result of fantastic imaginative and courageous minds.

[ramoz]

I dont think this is true. Creativity happens when you combine/blend prior knowledge. We don't magically create new information without prior meaning.

TikTok acts likes this and the remix is like a blending/combining prior creativity that leads to continuous new creativity.

[cambalache]

This very easily refuted, then no creativity is possible because who was going to create the "first knowledge"

[RealityVoid]

Your refutations is even more easily refuted. First knowledge is created by observing the world around us. Mimickry of the natural world is all around us, you even see it in animals.

[cambalache]

So you could create the knowledge without imitating others. Try again. The second time maybe will be better. That without entering in the discredited philosophical position of empiricism for epistemology.

[OrbitRock]

Fantastic and courageous minds working from the void?

Or fantastic and courageous minds responding to some cultural or historical material?

(Which would be much in the way a TikToker responds to a meme while adding some of their own spice).

Let’s not get bogged down by the fact that one domain might be perceived as more valuable/respected and the other not so.

What have philosophers ever done post-Socrates except come across the ecosystem of historical philosophers and riff off of that?

[cambalache]

Yes, fantastic and courageous minds. The kind of person we all due our civilization: Newton, Hooke, Darwin,Gauss, Euler,Watts.

[RealityVoid]

I think there is some truth in that those characters were more creative than many other, but they did not create in a void. Your first example, Newton, said "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." Who am I to contradict Newton? :)

[cambalache]

Arent you the same kid saying in other comment that there is not creativity, just imitation? Take a position and stick to it. BTW you are misinterpreting Newton (on purpose or not). He didnt say he copy them, he was humbly acknowledging there have been giants in science before him.

[OrbitRock]

Well, I think the insight in the article here is that a network (including such “giants” that came before) can boost the creativity of those who come after, even including a new giant such as Newton.

Think about any modern scientist. Has their creativity been boosted by the existence of all the other scientists?

If I’m a physicist, the existence of Newton boosted my creativity because now I can apply calculus to problems. If I’m a biologist, Im leaning on Darwin and all the insights of statisticians and the people who have delineated the methods and findings around which I organize my science.

People have previously innovated the concepts, methods, and foundational understandings, and finding new insight can be a matter of combining these in novel ways.

I don’t think this is completely different than what the author is describing in TikTok. Both the format and ecosystem of tools that the service creates, and the social network of users create an environment where it’s easier to go out and make something.

A similar thing happens in science.