Creativity Versus Intelligence: One Creates the Other

While I was writing for attractiveness something came to my mind. When you save a song to the disk it requires a small space. But if it is a clip it requires a big space. The same mechanism works in the brain. The visual memory has nothing to do with IQ but it requires a big space and energy in the brain. This is why the Inuit people have the most complex brain in the world though they have low IQ. In the same way at the extreme levels of Verbal and Performance IQ (spatial) these scores are inversely related with each other because the ones who score highest in one test score usually moderately in the other one (meaning that not much space left for the other). So I think you will understand what I mean if I use the term 'expensive ability in the brain'. The verbal and the performance are the most expensive abilities in the brain meaning that if you use all your credit in one of them you will not have much credit left for the other one. Math ability is much more flexible (much cheaper for the brain) than verbal. The ones who score top in verbal score usually moderately in math but the reverse is not true. The ones who score top in math don't need to score moderately in verbal (it means they can score higher and this has been psychometrically proved). It means even if you use all your credit for math you still have some credit left for the verbal ability. Math ability doesn't cost much energy and space in the brain (but makes you earn even much better than spatial ability which requires a complex brain). Does creativity require a complex brain? Well, I would imagine that the answer would be 'No'. I don't think it costs much space and/or energy in the brain because creativity is linked mostly to psychoticism and these genetic diseases belong mostly to the writers, poets and visual artists (much higher than scientists).

Personality Research

But we also know that there are savant musicians, drawers, and painters even in the 40-70 IQ range. Even if these low IQ people have some creativity (related with art) it means two things. First it is something different than IQ and it doesn't require much space and energy in the brain. As a person with 120 IQ has a much more complex brain than a person with 40 IQ the creativity would decline if it costs much space/energy/complexity in the brain. But even if a person with 40 IQ, 120 IQ or 150 IQ is creative it means it costs nothing for the brain which means a person can be very highly intelligent and creative at the same time. But we don't see the same relationship between verbal and spatial as they both cost a lot for the brain. To reach the extreme levels in one of them you have to sacrifice the other one (though they are positively correlated). It is rather like the relationship between being fat (weight) and tall. If you select randomly 100 men (1.80 cm height) and 100 men (1.70 cm height) the first group will weigh more than the second group (positively correlated). But if you select the tallest 100 men on earth and the fattest 100 men you will see that no one in the first group will have the weight of anyone in the second group as both being tall and requires high energy for the DNA. So they can't go
together anymore, they have to diverge in the end. In the same ay if you select the top 100 scorers in verbal and the top 100 scorers in spatial on earth you will see that the verbal and the spatial scores are very different for every man. Both require high energy, so they diverge at the extreme levels.

I think individually creativity is less important than IQ because if writing ability represents best for creativity the essay score in SAT is unrelated with income and academic success (we should also see the citations, not only GPA's). But only a few creative persons (who can think very differently) can be very important for a society.

E-L

Intelligence can tokenize aspects of reality; raw creativity can merely play with them. As a result, intelligence can "invent" creativity.

I see a lot of "creative" people who are able to write rock music, novels, etc. but wouldn't do so well creating a symphony or a book of philosophy. Creativity is overrated in part because it is so socially prized.