The Importance of Constraints in Creativity

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I find that it's often very hard to think of an idea without some kind of constraint added. And then whatever constraint you add actually very much influences that idea. For example, if you want to constrain your thinking and business idea creation, you ask how would I accomplish this business goal in much less time than I have in mind?

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What is "The Index"? What are some benefits of externally compiling and organizing one's knowledge? When is spaced repetition useful? How can we co-opt our visual systems to boost memory? Would we all be more interested in producing an external personal knowledgebase if we could feel on a visceral level how much information is constantly being forgotten? How and when should we move up and down the ladder of abstraction? What sorts of problems can be solved by simulation? What is a generative model (as opposed to a predictive model)? How can constraints improve creativity? How useful are credentials as a guide to how much a person knows and whether or not a person is "allowed" to have an opinion on a topic? What do credentials actually signal about a person? What are "fox" and "hedgehog" thinking? What is deugenesis?

Jeremy is the founder of Consilience, an immersive information retrieval company. Previously he did machine learning research at Google Brain and studied Applied Mathematics at Harvard University. Jeremy works relentlessly towards aggregating knowledge, acquiring knowledge, and creating new knowledge. Find him on Twitter at @jvnixon or email him at jnixon2@gmail.com.

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