[superposeur]

To support your point, I think the role of memory in creative work is highly underrated.

I’ve seen up close a few people who could fairly be described as “most creative researchers in the world” (in my field at least) according to metrics such as h-index and Nobel prizes. It always strikes me how essential exceptional memory is to what they do — they have detailed, immediate recall of the problems in their field and, to the extent this recall is no longer present, then they are no longer producing groundbreaking work. Their recall of facts outside the field is often nothing special.

Imagination, creativity, intelligence all seem to rely on memory in order to operate.