"Knowledge is not given or taught by replaying, but learned by playing with it"

We will learn by adapting our previous simple system models into:

Creating model:
    {challenge --> [thinking+building] --> artefact+KLT}

Creative Thinking model:
    {challenge --> [thinking+what if] --> innovation+KLT}

(Abbreviations: K=Knowing, L=Learning, T=Thinking, C=Creating)

An obvious difference between 'thinking' and 'creative thinking' is the use of 'what if' tool while we are thinking. In another way, when we use creative thinking to output a creation, we call the process 'creating'. Here  we should be clear that a creation is putting into existence something never existed before - "not another copy of something already exists". A new car is not a creation. A new dress is a creation only in the mind of the designer or dressmaker.

Our creation may have been in existence for thousands of years but we have no knowledge of it! How many times we (re)discover new ideas from (insignificant) clues we ignored in the past? How often do we find our creation is merely a direct result of following a certain path (methodology, procedure or algorithm)? It has been found that certain systems under certain conditions will always converge to an attractor (equilibrium, least energy configuration stable point, maximum entropy state, or completely closed, constrained and fixed -- no degree of freedom state). In such systems, no creation is possible as no 'new' object is possible under all known operations/processes. (Quick check up Chaos theory ;-)

A challenge on 'statistical strength': by frequency or by intensity?

    When we look at statistics, what we often see is the counts or frequencies of possible outcomes of certain (random) events (represented by random variables) and we see that the higher the count - the more likely the outcome. We see that innovation would have very low count (of 1) and so very little chance of having a 'creative' outcome. When we see how often the earth trembles and only once in a long while a devastating earthquake comes and kills thousands, we wonder if statistics gives us any useful knowledge at all. Here, it is the intensity of events that matters. Such high intensity does not happen many times in history. It is not likely to be among the recorded/statistical outcomes - but would we give an arm and a leg to have fore-knowledge of its happening?

    Creative thinking is like that, we fail many times. If we recorded all outcomes of our creative thinking, our statistics would be full of failures! And we succeed only once (in a blue moon).
-- This is not an idle warning for those who wish to engage in a career of creative thinking or 'inventing'. --

How can we identify 'novelty' (something new)? (please see a dictionary for other meanings.)

__ we can find 2 or more copies        __ we can find only 1 old copy
__ we cannot find any copy             __ we have not made 1 prototype yet


<NB> 14. To create: to cause to exist (where there was none);
To create: VT. แต่งตั้ง syn:[appoint] VT. สร้าง syn:[make] VT. สร้างสรรค์ relate:[ประดิษฐ์] [Lexitron ET]

To innovate : to introduce novelties or changes (in or on some thing); 1. To bring in as new; to introduce as a novelty; as, to innovate a word or an act. [Archaic] [1913 Webster] 2. To change or alter by introducing something new; to remodel; to revolutionize. [Archaic] --Burton. [1913 Webster]

To innovate: VT. ทำให้เปลี่ยนแปลงใหม่ relate:[ทำให้เปลี่ยนโฉมใหม่, ปรับปรุงใหม่, สร้างสรรค์สิ่งใหม่ๆ] syn:[create; compose; contrive]
VI. เปลี่ยนแปลงใหม่ relate:[เปลี่ยนโฉมใหม่, ปรับปรุงใหม่, บูรณะ] syn:[create; compose; contrive] [Lexitron ET]

<NB> 15. Questions: Is a creation possible in a 'closed set of objects' or a set with a 'closure' under all 'defined' mathematical operations? What about systems with 'exceptions'? A 'new' system?

<NB> 16. Creating new individual knowledge means extending beyond our own world. Creating new public knowledge means extending the world we live in. Innovation often associates with extending public devices but not knowledge!

<NB> 17. Innovation = Creating = creative thinking + realization: so dreaming without making it come true is merely idle wishing. 'Gambling' to most of us is another form of wishing -- professional gamblers make sure they win! 'Get rich quick schemes' can give good result to the scheme runners but losses to other participants ('suckers').

<NB> 18. Many postgraduate Thai students who study overseas find the change of underlying assumptions about learning unsettling. The tape recorder-player learning is replaced by thinking and creative thinking self-learning approaches. "Knowledge is not given or taught by replaying, but learned by playing with it". The learning (or journey) is as important as the knowledge. The foundation of further education is not memory of the past knowledge but the ability to process data and information to create (new) knowledge -- knowing how to learn.