Creativity & Knowledge

Creativity and knowledge have a strong link with each other – but at the same time, they differ greatly. Wikipedia defines creativity as “a mental process involving the discovery of new ideas or concepts, or new associations of the existing ideas or concepts, fueled by the process of either conscious or unconscious insight.” In this way, creativity directly links back to knowledge in the sense that “new ideas or concepts” are knowledge – as anything that one knows as facts can be considered knowledge.

During the process of creating, we are constantly using our knowledge to create. If we had no idea how to draw a human face and the proportions of a body, how would we be able to put our creativity to work if it involves the result of realistic human beings in the picture? Knowledge, essentially, allows for us artists to execute our creative plans.

Not only does knowledge allow for us to be creative, but creativity is basically another form of knowledge. As a Yahoo! Answers user has put quite perfectly, “Not all individuals have a creative nature or the ability to see things differently.” So just because an individual has knowledge does not necessarily mean that they are creative. In order to be creative, we need to be able to cleverly and skillfully manipulate the knowledge we have into something that no other would think of.

Following that path, creativity and knowledge are different. They are not two separate entities as they need each other, but they do have their own characteristics. As stated earlier, creativity involves personal brain activity to mold and shape new ideas and concepts. Knowledge is all about facts and just knowing what is correct. Creativity involves a process that consists more of just memorizing and storing information in the catacombs of our brains. This process varies from person to person as the process can consist of anything that will help an individual get the creative juices flowing.

However, knowledge can also need creativity as well. Extending creativity’s definition to the simple terms of being able to think in a different way, knowledge needs creativity in that we need to be able to link different pieces of information together and, thus, creating a new piece of knowledge. One such example is in the medical field – being able to link together symptoms and diseases to appropriately diagnose a patient.

Bringing this to a close, creativity and knowledge are not standalone entities but rather form a team that will allow individuals to become unstoppable in whichever they choose. It is only dependent upon the individuals’ willingness to work hard and the knowledge of which how to apply their creativity.