Originality
 

Depending on who you listen to, modern humans have been around for quite some time, 10000's to millions of years. Within that time, billions upon billions of humans have existed, reasoned and thought up the world that now surrounds us.

My question is if original thought exists anymore...

Is it possible that there is no such thing as originality anymore? That we've hit the proverbial ceiling of our creativeness as humans?


My opinion is this: truly original thought is VERY rare and magnificent. Take a look at the internet. It's only been around for probably 30 years or so (Al Gore and whatnot).....but its been based off of hundreds of thousands of ideas....which have been based off of an infinite amount of other ideas. It may have been original in the sense of "the next piece of the puzzle--we have computers and phones, lets put them together"...... you get the idea.

Your thoughts?

not too likely...

that wasn't a very original topic.. you can do better, c'mon man

I think the occasional random thought could be original, but on the whole I'd say we're all just thinking someone elses thoughts.

Original thoughts are possible due to the advancement of human knowledge. The idea that gravity isn't really a force, but a byproduct of the warping of space, was not around until after the (original) idea that matter and energy are the same thing.

The idea of sampling (for music) did not come into being until after the technology was in place to make it possible.

Etc. Etc.

i'm thinking about cheese...right..................NOW! is anyone else? no takers? ok, i'm original. or not. :p

we've more or less exhausted originality, all there is left now is application and combination to churn out something seemingly new using very old ideas...

or so it seems...unless this is just a plateau but suddenly we reach exponential proportions of originality...so much so that only the idea of being completely unoriginal is origial, thus creating a perpetual paradox. Aaaaah nothing like a good 3 cups of coke to get a sugar high.

hmmm... i've thought about this before.

I'm with clavus. People couldn't have certain ideas before certain things happen. Llike, you wouldn't have thought about surfing the net, until the net was invented. you wouldn't have thought about setting up trade with america until someone found america.
People think new things based on the amount of things that they are exposed to. Every person has been exposed to different things. And no one person has been exposed to everything. So, how could every thought be out there already?

While you may say nothing is original, someone else may say everything is original. Even when you try and copy something, you are not going to get it the same every time. If you think about a bottle and someone else thinks about a bottle, your bottle experiences will determine how the bottle looks to you in your head, or even if there is a bottle at all.

Even on the internet with a file, if two people download the same file it isn't the same thing. It comes to two physically seperate locations. And if you download a file twice, it is still not the same because you got it at different times (and/or on the media itself, it is stored at a different location, or on the media if it is in the same place the tolerance for what a 1 and a 0 is will come into play because one of the 'switches' isn't totally off, and if all of that is the same then nevermind, I'm just babbling again... wow, that was a lot in parenthases).

Are you kidding? There is more original thought now every day than occurred in any given *year* before 1600.

I cite four basic pieces of support:

1) creativity is currently a highly prized facet of humanity. This has not always been the case, as a matter of fact in the history of civilization this is a pretty damed rare thing. Normally the rule of thumb for the population is "don't be different, don't stir things up" now, we value cleverness and originality more highly than anything else. Rather than fighting to get something new embraced, It is almost necessary to beat the neophiles off with sticks. This leads people to actively try to be original. On top of this the world population has more leisure time, and more free resources than ever before. This leads to art, and pondering both of which are great generators of originality.

2) The current world population is greater than the *sum total* of everyone who has previously lived. even though our history is long, we currently have more man hours to think of stuff than history provided. This is particularly important in conjunction with point 3

3) We are in an unprecedented technological, social and cultural growth phase. There are more "things" now than there ever have been in history, and every day there are even more (as a matter of fact, every day there is a greater increase than there ever have been) This point was explained quite well by Jonsgirl. Because there are more things, more nouns if you will, all of the ideas about the new things are open to be thought of for the first time. This applies obviously to technology, but if you give it some thought it also applies to art, religion, and most other aspects of culture.

4) The last point is related to #3, but is a bit complicated. It is basically that simple fact that you *can't* run out of original ideas. The pool of ideas is in fact infinite. This was actually proved by the mathematician Godel. The basis of his proof was that no system of rules could be constructed so that it could assert every true statement about the system. The whole thing is a bit complicated, but explained quite well in the book "Godel, Escher, Bach... Eternal Golden Brade" But for those who don't feel like digging into it, rest assured that it is a sound proof, and that there are truly an unlimited number of relevant and interesting ideas.

I don't know about other fields, but I know that in math and the hard sciences originality is running rampant. Completely new ideas appear daily, and new discoveries prompt never before imagined discussions constantly. Simply because Hollywood can't seem to come up with too many new ideas doesn't mean humanity as a whole is having the same problem

Gay Ants:D

Thats an original.......huh??

The truth is, we'll never really know whether our thoughts are original or not. Unless we can know the thoughts of every single human being (believe me, John Ashcroft is trying) we can never know if our thoughts are original. Published thoughts might be original, and I guess are still possible. But to actually know is unknowable, I think.

Original thought can happen, but not too often. Some of the greatest minds can make something original, and some of the stupidest minds can make something original.

Raw Kuts: depends on your definition of "original", I completely understand and agree.

giblfiz: interesting point, and I didn't know the Godel theory.

My retort is this: if we haven't reached the end of original thought, then we have only reached 1/infinty of our true potential as humans. Correct?

I think that pretty much sums it up...we have infinite potential, and there will always be new thoughts building on what has previously been discovered. While that may be taking someone else's original thought, if there is a new application, then it could definitely be considered original.

Hopefully we'll be around long enough without destroying ourselves to achieve this.

Basically, after that first human uttered the first word, everything said or thought has built on something someone else said or thought. We're a lot more 'hive-like' a species than we think we are, as we share a collective conscious.

I suppose that is one way to look at it. We have only just begun to touch what we can be. We are nothing(x/inf) compared to what we could potently come. I assume thats the prelude to a retort, otherwise I'm a little lost.

I'm not surprised that you don't know the Godel _proof_, its a bit esoteric. Really the only reason I would expect someone to know it is if they majored in math, or if they read "EGB" which did make it onto the best sellers list for a while. (I have no idea how that happened, I find the book unmanageably dense, and I usually like reading dense books)

Just wanted to make sure I read you right :)

i believe there is more true originality out there, but its very hard to find. you can have true originality as a person with a unique personality though. thats our gift, our intelect. but ideas.. they all come out of another one, it all started with instict.. to some point, we're all just coping each other, and pulling it to new heights. history repeats itself, but then again it doesnt.

hmmmm

Originality has never been without prompt. Just becuase something is based upon another idea does not negate its orginaliity. Take for example the South Park Se(a)men episode. It was based off of the Simpsons Lisas Tooth episode, which was based off of a Twilight Zone episode, which was an incarnation of yet another story. Im sure this story slowly evolved from several others. Originality only exists if your definition is lax enough to accomidate for the prompts as being original, and the ideas they inspired and further ideas thereafter. Its all a matter of opinion.