My two cents: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/creativity

“Unusual” I can understand but “original” seems unimportant. I can be creative with redundant resources. Creative seems like a quality or some possession that attributes unusual and original actions. Creativity is like the bulb and the work is the light it produces.

“Unusual” I can understand but “original” seems unimportant. — Arbü1237

Does anybody produce 'original' ideas?

Creativity is the ability to come up with ideas that few if any other people come up with. Positive creativity results in a new idea that other people like or benefit from. You can be creative, but it doesn't mean your idea will resonate with others or contribute beyond the fact that its original.

“original” seems unimportant — Arbü1237

If you are not original, you are not creating.

Creative seems like a quality or some possession that attributes unusual and original actions. Creativity is like the bulb and the work is the light it produces. — Arbü1237

Creative and creativity are the same word but with different morphological classifications, like beautiful and beautifully, wind and windy.

Open-minded seems important to creative definition.

It's the ability - and willingness - to look at the world, or something in the world, from an unusual perspective and to rearrange that perception and translate it into a medium in a form that communicates the different perspective to other people. I realize that's not a very good sentence; I was trying to avoid 'originality' and 'novelty'.
There is nothing new under the sun; there are no ideas that nobody's ever had. You will never make anything completely different from everything that's been done been before. Creativity is more like being a kaleidoscope; reconfiguring what already exists in a new arrangement.

All creation or creativity involves assembling elements in novel configurations. Now, how to do it well? Some suggestions:

Consider looking to nature, and observe her creative process, where existing elements are amalgamated, fused, or 'accreted' to form new entities such as atoms, stars, planets, molecules, cells, etc. Similarly, human creativity follows this pattern, albeit with thoughts as the building blocks that are 'accreted' together to generate innovative ideas and creations.

Long ago, i came across a story about an alchemist who employed a creativity technique consisting of two phases. The initial stage, was the absorption phase, and it involved the alchemist immersing himself entirely in his chosen subject. This entailed extensive reading and engaging with individuals possessing knowledge or insights related to his area of interest. This immersive phase typically lasted several months. The subsequent phase involved deep contemplation, reflection, and experimentation, during which the alchemist meticulously pondered all the information gathered during the absorption phase. It was within this contemplative stage that he purportedly experienced moments of creative inspiration and innovation.

Furthermore, adopt a multidisciplinary approach. Explore how seemingly unrelated concepts can intertwine with your creative pursuits. Embracing diverse perspectives and fields of study can often lead to unique and innovative solutions.

Most importantly have fun with it. Play with ideas as a child plays with toys, and new things will begin to occur to you. Also, always listen to your intuition, and don't let anyone shutdown your intuition; learn to listen to it closely and carefully.

a definition — Arbü1237

In some contexts it's sufficient to be original or unusual in some way, for example skilled, insightful, inventive. A creative person is not necessarily productive, nor successful.

But there's been a professionalization of the word 'creative', and there's a "creative class" of people working in advertisement, design, entertainment etc. The creativity of these guys is defined by how much stuff or content they produce, exhibit, publish or by how much influence they have or how much money they earn.

Explore how seemingly unrelated concepts can intertwine with your creative pursuits — punos

This seems to be the key. Einstein termed it "combinatory play" - the secret of genius, and the essential feature of productive thought. Quoted from the article:

Alive and awake to the world, we amass a collection of cross-disciplinary building blocks — knowledge, memories, bits of information, sparks of inspiration, and other existing ideas — that we then combine and recombine, mostly unconsciously, into something “new.”

It's worth mentioning, too, that Einstein came up with some of his best ideas while playing the violin.

Does anybody produce 'original' ideas? — Beverley

Yes. It can happen, even it's extremely rare and the person getting the "original" idea won't usually know that actually his or her idea is quite original.

My father had a wonderful saying about medical research: "Everything in medical research has been already been thought in old German medical journals, but as nobody reads them anymore, nobody knows about them."

Creativity is an individual exposing some part of who they are. I heard a comic saying how Richard Prior did sole surgery on stage. He made trying to burn himself alive funny. Writers put themselves in the persona of the characters they create. There is no deviding line between the two. The creation is the creator.

Across place and time, is creativity a reaction to a primal need? Objects of adornment have been found, through archeology, made by the Neanderthals. Is this a common thread?

Creativity is an attribute of mind, it is it's ability to create, whether the creation be new or old. Artwork is creative, but so too is an experiment; there's the logic surrounding the experiment, but so too it's creation in the world. It's the opposite of logic, and most things have both a creative and logical side. Take a tree for example, there is it's being in the world and what created it, and then there is the fact it is green and produces oxygen. Most things need creativity to exist, you cannot produce a theory without knowledge of language and how to use it - the language itself is not the logic but it's intrinsic content is - use of language is purely creative until it is accredited to it's references.

Breakthroughs in medical science seem to have been historically rare until we began to use microscopes (or the hypothetical-deductive method seriously) and thus learned about microbes etc.

Across place and time, is creativity a reaction to a primal need? — Jerome

Or a consequence from the fact that by drawing pictures on the walls of caves etc some of the more human-like primates could preserve and accumulate knowledge, which eventually increased their fitness. I think creativity is basically something that an animal (including human) does in order to solve problems and invent things in order to increase its fitness. However, in many human cultures creativity is oppressed, demotivated, or redirected by distractions.

Across place and time, is creativity a reaction to a primal need? Objects of adornment have been found, through archeology, made by the Neanderthals. — Jerome

I think yes, it is.

But to what extent does your conception of creativity go? -- either creativity in a literary and artistic sense or in a technical way.

It's the opposite of logic, and most things have both a creative and logical side. Take a tree for example, there is it's being in the world and what created it, and then there is the fact it is green and produces oxygen. Most things need creativity to exist — Barkon

Do you mean that a tree exists because it is both logical and creative? What if we know about a tree's existence because we are the ones who are creative and logical?

Logic may have a pass; but I doubt whether creativity is an attribute of animals or things.

Creativity is the action of the unknown. It is that for which the recipe does not yet exist; it is the unprecedented; that about which nothing can be said, except in retrospect. It is the uniqueness of every moment.

A human replicates through reproduction, which isn't entirely logical, you don't need to know about how to reproduce, and you probably end up reproducing through desire to have intercourse. At most you supply energy and drive to what then becomes a matter of reproductive logic. Lot's of the procedure are skipped mentally, you do not have to consider the activity of sperm and egg, you just have to have a sexual encounter. My former example about the fact the words I type have no logic to them, and are completely creative, until they are accredited to their references. A tree is also a creative being, it isn't reduced to any or all of its parts, it exists on Earth stand-alone, and there was life force involved in it's generation where a whole lot of the logic involved in that was skipped. Most things are rather a product of simply living, but have enumerable amounts of logic within them. Throwing a ball is creative, you do it without considering the logic; that you grasped it with your hands and swung your arm back and forward, it's more the nature of the human who's wise of throwing, creating this action.

I can agree with this, rather poetic example.

Is "Love" ever experienced stand-alone, above the fact it was chemicals of the body and mind? I would say yes, the mind doesn't force us to reduce love to the chemicals it is. In the same regard as the tree is not reduced to all of its parts - it exists - and it probably doesn't take into account the logic behind the reproduction of itself, the production of oxygen and so forth.

JKOP. If animals use creativity is there a common primal need? Also have I read that in many early languages the same word is used for "change and evil". I assume this is because change was seen as a threat to a groups power structure as it can be today.

A tree is also a creative being, it isn't reduced to any or all of its parts, it exists on Earth stand-alone, and there was life force involved in it's generation where a whole lot of the logic involved in that was skipped. — Barkon

I think I am starting to understand you -- you consider a tree as a creative being because it produces oxygen and for simply standing on Earth.

Yet I still think that the process of a tree's existence is pretty logical to me. I mean, a tree doesn't stand in a forest without following a basic pattern, nor does it produce oxygen randomly. You claim 'a whole lot of the logic involved was skipped' -- are you sure? I fully believe that plants are very logical. More than some humans.

@Barkon

When the leaf of a tree falls down in autumn -- is this a creative or logical move?

Hmm...

javi2541. To me, every idea that crosses the line into something new is creative. If it could be the affect of a primal need, then that need still effects our logic today and that is a line of thought to explore.

unenlightened Creativity is a product of the mind and the ingredients for the recipe are there. They must be arranged in a creative way by the need of the individual.

If animals use creativity is there a common primal need? — Jerome

We're creative not only when we need to, but also when we want to, or when it's expected of us (i.e. various reasons). Sometimes it's necessity that makes me creative, other times it's boredom.

I assume this is because change was seen as a threat to a groups power structure as it can be today. — Jerome

Yeah, creative writers, artists, and scientists may have to express their work in ways that reduce the risk of being burned at the stake or ostracized by the group. For example, by the use of metaphor, coded language, jargon, obscurity.

I define creativity as producing intentional accidents (i.e. disciplined improvisation).

Some creativity involves creating an end product, say a movie, other creativity involves creating a pathway to an end product, that is: problem solving.

The following may be an approach to the rather open question "behind" the OP.

Creativity needs a discerning audience otherwise it is just "some more of...".

Creativity needs antecedents but with a distinct or distinguishing gap/leap from them.

And it may be argued, creativity needs to have a "product" with a use that someone else did not have (access to ) previously but will use now.

Just a random question, can it be called creativity by its creator without agreement from others?

hopeful smile