|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
in a parallel universe, modestgoddess suggests: I thought I'd had an original thought - is there such a thing anymore?! elsewhere, someone threw in a jab regarding an epitaph, saying there's nothing new under the sun. in another thread the idea of a Human Consciousness was brought up as being an explanation for parallelism in ideas. so, are there original thoughts? have you had one? -joe (maybe we can debunk it) blanshard One original thought is worth a thousand mindless quotings. --Diogenes (quoted by William Safire in New York Times Magazine) http://home.mn.rr.com/wwftd/
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605 |
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Look at the statistics against having an original thought. Billions of people have had all of my experiences before me. Millions of them have been more gifted than I can claim to be. Thousands must have had all of my thoughts before me. What hope have I of having an original idea? How could I prove its orginality?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
one philosophy holds that only god can have an original thought.. and on god can create something.. and since humans are created in the image of god, we can sometimes create something that seems original-- but they are just copies.
an other philosophy holds human are creators, even to the point of having created the idea of god.
yes, there are orignal thinkers. I think Steven Hawkins might be one. i don't understand his thoughts, but many who have more knowledge of the world do understand some of his ideas, and i guess i trust them. Einstein was an original thinker. DaVinci..Newton, others ..
as to whether they were divinely inspired, or demi gods, that is for you to decide.
have i ever had an original thought? yes.. but they were small and fleeting.. If DaVinci was a candle, my thoughts are smaller than static shock, and never as powerful!
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Feb 2002
Posts: 833
old hand
|
|
old hand
Joined: Feb 2002
Posts: 833 |
Hey tsuwm, I DO remember having an original thought once, but I can't remember what it was. Just tried to look up in my notes on my journal (I would've written an entry about an original thought, for sure!) but they stop (the notes do) before the thought occurred and I can't remember exactly when it was....Damn, now I'm going to have to read through them all since the last notes and make more notes.
If I find it, I'll post it and when it occurred, and then anyone who had the same thought can depress me by telling me so. :o)
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 2,661
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 2,661 |
Ramble alert! I know... it's me... you knew it was coming...Arriving at a conclusion independently must be *considered original thought, otherwise the OED (or someone else) would be able to sue me for using these words, and calling them English. (not that that is what I'm doing  ) --------- Simpson's quote ----------- John: Homer, what have you got against gays? Homer: You know! It's not... usual. If there was a law, it'd be against it! Marge: Oh Homer, please! You're embarrassing yourself. Homer: No I'm not, Marge! They're embarrasing me. They're embarrassing America. They turned the Navy into a floating joke. They ruined all our best names like Bruce, and Lance, and Julian. Those were the toughest names we had! Now they're just, uh... John: Queer? Homer: Yeah, and that's another thing! I resent you people using that word. That's our word for making fun of you! We need it!! Well I'm taking back our word, and I'm taking back my son! The thought of people owning words is just as ridiculous as the greed and materialism that drives laws that allow people and/or corporations to own words (like "three-peat" for example). If I write a song called "My Way" I'm sure most (who know the other, already popular one) will think it's a 'cover'(version). Yet titles of songs aren't copyrightable. Why not? Tide and Wisk wash clothes with about as much (probably less) difference as my song called My Way and thiers expresses the sentiment of things being done My Way. I don't see the value in detergent "style" nearly as much as I *know the value of expression. I'm not saying there are any original thoughts, but there must be room to allow people to believe they are having them. I'll *let the extrapolations of original thoughts about my above ramblings begin.... now! 
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,636
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,636 |
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605 |
Billions of people have had all of my experiences before me.
??? But that's not just factually true, bill.
No one has had the same combination of life-events that formed your perspective and judgment. Plug your lifetime-experiences into a figurative google, and you'll get only one hit, named bill hunt.
And the same applies to each of us. People are not fungible in the general case.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605 |
are there original thoughts? have you had one?
Yes.
and yes.
(currently in litigation)
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146 |
I don't believe that there's an event independent of all stimuli called "an original thought". Everyone is the sum of their experiences (and that's not even an original cliché), so any thought a person has is by definition derivative, even if it is only derived from personal experiences.
But you first need to define what a "thought" is. Do you mean an idea? Or a concept? If it's an idea, I firmly believe it is synthesised from your previous experiences. if it is a concept, that is a bunch of ideas arranged as a group, then it is a synthesis of your previous experiences and existing knowledge, or at least a selection of them.
And - assuming that you develop an idea which no one else has had, how do you know? It's new to you, but someone else may well have had the same one. Any number of concepts, seemingly original, have arisen independently of each other at about the same time. It happened a lot during the Renaissance, which at least appears to point towards it being a cultural thing.
The trick to "originality" is coming up with something {i]new to others, even though it may not be truly original. Hawking's ideas fall into that category. Most of what he says in simply a logical progression (to him) from some starting point based on his encyclopaedic knowledge of his specialist area. In other words, an "original thought" is often simply a new arrangement of or an extrapoloation of existing knowledge.
Well, that's my view!
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
|
|
|
|
Forums16
Topics13,913
Posts229,334
Members9,182
| |
Most Online3,341
Dec 9th, 2011
|
|
|
0 members (),
729
guests, and
2
robots. |
|
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
|
