Necessity is the mother of innovation.

They had to be VERY RESOURCEFUL in order to survive under that kind of condition.

The ONLY factor that can affect creativity cultivation across average people has to be environmental.  That is MY POINT.  Average people are NOT willing to be starving artist.  In developed country, the government funded starving artist so that they can survive.  We are NOT at that level yet.

Sorry.  I got my engineering degree from USA.  It is a USA based system with STRONG emphasis on well rounded education.  Hence, we (engineering student) has taken plenty of courses in Liberal Arts and Social Science section.  As per USA system, many engineering graduates have a lot of hobbies in arts, music, and so on..  Many engineers are amateur artists.  The PROBLEM has more to do with British education system than anything else.

10% of people will always be CREATIVE.  10% of people will NEVER be CREATIVE.  It is the 80% aka average people that can be affected by the environment.  That is the group that we can do something about.

This is BRITISH system thinking again.  Many engineers in USA are amateur musician, painters and so on.  Some of them turned professional in some cases.

Even in Malaysia, in Chinese cultural area, there are plenty of professionals involve in performing arts and so on.

silverhawk,

<< You miss my point. You can be an "amateur" at it, but that's pointless. If your society cannot sustain professional artists, then creativity will slowly die in your culture.>>

1) I do believe "art" in the normal sense is important.

2) However, I have to disagree with you on this one which is only professional artist is CREATIVE.

Dreamer

Very interesting discussions going on here. I just scrolled through the past 5 pages, so forgive me if I'm bringing up a past argument.

I think, in certain context, that creativity is formed out of necessity, sometimes out of curiosity and in a number of instances, out of selfishness and pure greed.

Think about the corporate fraud and scandals in 2001 - 2002. Enron, WorldCom in the US and HIH and Harris Scarfe in Australia.

They all happened due to CREATIVE accounting. What sparked that innovation? Greed - reporting account balances that were not tangible, recording "future profits" in the current reporting period to increase share prices.

Then they came up with loads of investment vehicles, special purpose entities which relied on "projected future profits" to sustain current high share prices. They created mark-to-market accounting practices.

Banks become very self interested and profit minded. They gave out loans to undeserving and uncreditworthy borrowers. Derivatives which were created to hedge against risk, was creatively twisted around and used to increase the bank's profits.

Unfortunately, all these creative traders and accountants were not creative enough to protect the downfall of the market, and the global financial crisis.

To TS,

The answer is a definite NO

For some, they don't lose something they do not have to begin with

For others, no matter what the outside society wants to do to them, what they have they still retain

And for this country, sad to say, more than 99% of our countryfolks fall into the first category

No, it ain't the education system, it's the people

Face it, we are a ppl with no imagination

In other words, we are stupid, very stupid, as compared to ppl from other countries

For what i learn from history, we asian people did have a time be more creative than the western. In fact it is true that paper, compass, gun powder and printing technology originate from China. Even the using of gun in war also start from China. The creativity of Asia people sometimes can be said due to military need. However, one inherent problem with Asian people creativity is that they do not ask as many "why" as western people did. Most importantly, we Asian people dare not take risk( Industrial revolution do not occur in China because there is risk that the tecnology cannot sustain itself at the very begining as China is overpopulated).

I can say creativity arise in western due to low population and also war. If one country were to be success in war, they must have sufficient foundation in technology (Those who study WW2 history will understand). It is also low population that make hiring labour is more costly than using automated machinery. Finally, the education system during that time give student their own time to either do seft study and work. Compare to current education system in Asian country, most students are forced to study until time remain for them to do seft study is limited.

If you guys can't even understand what "Creativity" is all about

Read it carefully, not war broke out, but peace broke out
In every case, not long before the period of intense creativity, some calamity must happened

The period of creativity can only last about 50 years or so, plus or minus 20 years, and then it deflates

Japan of today is suffering, mainly due to their people are just ain't creative enough

Same with the Chinese people
After long period of peace, the Chinese people became complacent and then they just stop thinking

And for this country? Oh my
Our young generation is wasted for they never get any chance to suffer anything
Lepak becomes their favorite activity
Hmm... why bother to think if life is so easy?

He has a VALID point.  And, there is a LOGICAL REASONING behind this.  Now, instead of arguing with him, why not assume that he is RIGHT and THINK why that might be TRUE??

Once upon a time, I heard a good definition of being CREATIVE.

Being CREATIVE means that you are capable of

A) Looking foolish
B) Challenging the conventional wisdom.
C) Being WRONG.

Not trying to nick pick, but if you really want to be creative, you gotta change your ways

There are a lot of ways to be creative, and in fact, one can train oneself to be creative (albeit still limited by one's innate creativity) --- but there is only ONE way to kill all your creativity, and that is, to think that you are right all the time

And that's what you are doing to yourself, right now

The only one who can free you out of that teeny tiny box is yourself.... so... it's really up to you

in the case for China, it's the burdening custom that hindered the development of science and technology
there's a Chinese saying --- don't stick your neck up
and then there's the Confucius thinking --- one has to obey their superior with utmost respect
combine the two, we got a stagnant culture in China, and they end up wasting 3000 years out of their 5000 years history

silverhawk,
So, how much do you know about Satir Change Model?? 
Until you KNOW that you DO NOT KNOW, you cannot be CREATIVE.
A FULL pot cannot receive any more water.  You have to empty the pot first.

Dreamer

glad somebody got it .

i teach 1st year architecture, one of the most creativity-dependent courses in the world. some might say fine-art is the most creative course, but architecture depends on creativity to solve problems. harnessing the ability for practical uses. since our society does pay much attention to creativity, breaking that mindset is one of the most challenging thing i've ever done.

“Describe how to determine the height of a skyscraper with a barometer.”

One student replied: “You tie a long piece of string to the neck of the barometer, then lower the barometer from the roof of the skyscraper to the ground. The length of the string plus the length of the barometer will equal the height of the building.”

This highly original answer so incensed the examiner that the student was failed immediately. The student appealed on the grounds that his answer was indisputably correct, and the university appointed an independent arbiter to decide the case.

The arbiter judged that the answer was indeed correct, but did not display any noticeable knowledge of physics. To resolve the problem it was decided to call the student in and allow him six minutes in which to provide a verbal answer which showed at least a minimal familiarity with the basic principles of physics.

For five minutes the student sat in silence, forehead creased in thought.

The arbiter reminded him that time was running out, to which the student replied that he had several extremely relevant answers, but couldn’t make up his mind which to use. On being advised to hurry up the student replied as follows:

“Firstly, you could take the barometer up to the roof of the skyscraper, drop it over the edge, and measure the time it takes to reach the ground. The height of the building can then be worked out from the formula H = 0.5g x t squared. But bad luck on the barometer.” “Or if the sun is shining you could measure the height of the barometer, then set it on end and measure the length of its shadow. Then you measure the length of the skyscraper’s shadow, and thereafter it is a simple matter of proportional arithmetic to work out the height of the skyscraper.” “But if you wanted to be highly scientific about it, you could tie a short piece of string to the barometer and swing it like a pendulum, first at ground level and then on the roof of the skyscraper. The height is worked out by the difference in the gravitational restoring force T = 2 pi sq root (l/g).”

“…or if the skyscraper has an outside emergency staircase, it would be easier to walk up it and mark off the height of the skyscraper in barometer lengths, then add them up.” “If you merely wanted to be boring and orthodox about it, of course, you could use the barometer to measure the air pressure on the roof of the skyscraper and on the ground, and convert the difference in millibars into feet to give the height of the building.”

“But since we are constantly being exhorted to exercise independence of mind and apply scientific methods, undoubtedly the best way would be to knock on the janitor’s door and say to him ‘If you would like a nice new barometer, I will give you this one if you tell me the height of this skyscraper’.”

Loved the share silver. Where did you get it, might I inquire?