Always the dilemma. How do we get outside of the mind to look back in?
And this is how I arrived at the conclusion that all thought is original. No matter what I recall from the ‘past’, it is always a reconstruction and therefore, a new thought. Sort of a memory of a memory stretching into infinity. Obviously, we can and do make original/unoriginal comparisons. We couldn’t function without them. But they are another of those irritating constructs of the mind we can’t seem to get away from.
this website is a perfect example of how original thoughts are formed.
the only way you can ever think of something new is if you hear it from someone else, or see it somewhere outside your brain. if two people view the same exact experience, the only thing different will be how they interpret it. by ‘interpret’ i mean the connections that are made between the current thing being observed, and past things that may have been similar in some way.
the thing that makes a person ‘more original’ is that they are able to draw more connections between the things they currently experience, and the memories of all the things they have in the the past. this can be caused by a simply larger long term memory capacity, or some kind of facility for recording all of the little facets of a memory so that they can be compared more specifically and in more situations.
for example, i watch a national geographic show about monkeys who beat the crap out of weaker monkeys so that they can increase their status in the monkey society. then one of my weakling friends tells me about how confused he is about how his classmates beat the crap out of him all the time. so i say ‘maybe they just want to look strong and cool and you help to do that.’ he never would have thought of that if all he ever saw was guy a show up, punch him and then leave.
on this website, i say all of the things that i have ever thought regarding a topic, and then somebody else says something that incorporates the information they know. that information then becomes a part of what i know in addition to what i already knew, and completely new and unique connections are formed. the connections are the only useful part of knowledge. without them, knowledge only consists of “the apple is” instead of “the apple is good for eating”
as for things in history that have seemed extremely original, they are really just no more than not assuming a common assumption. for example, einstein made the whole science world crazy when he said time isnt absolute. but all he did was notice a situation in which a parameter that was expected to change (the speed of light) did not change, and he just changed a different parameter (time) that was assumed, but not known, to not change.
i agree i think. we are all bound by what the world will provide us. like we cannot think of a new colour, we cannot think of anything outside of the sensory data we recieve. ‘originality’ is the stringing together of aspects from different areas.
exploration and experimentation however we do posess. for example mozart was a keen experimenter and perhaps had an ‘original’ point of view, and by this i mean he liked things that were uncommon, which he created. however he did not create new notes, he is bound by his instrument and can only explore the possibilities. it would not be possible for mozart to think of a piece of music in his head without having heard what it is made of.
thought is always old, it is always the past and can never experience the new. The present is not static yet constantly moving. We record it as memory, analyse it interpret it, yet it can never experience the new. Thought is the past.
That being said I agree that every thought is original, simply because every moment is original. Every emotion is original, Anger last night is not the same as the anger this mourning it is a completly new phenominon.
What I think we are tryin to get at here is maybe creative thought? Because I definatly see a lack of creative thought throughout society as a whole. Individuals often mimik, or try to fit in a certain mold. They do not wish to be creative because to be creative is to be different, or on the other hand people are so caught up in they’re daily lives, they’re minds so filled with chatter that they’re lives have become monotomus, where nothing seems new, when really every moment is new.
It seems to me that creative thought is born out of awareness. Awareness of the moment allows for a quiet mind. After all the definition of intelligence is mental awareness.
That is what I think we lack today throughtout all of mankind, true intelligence, mental awareness. So many of us are completly jaded, depressed, caught up in a career or a family tiff, or whatever there are so many examples but you get my point.
The problem is we rely totaly on information, our knowledge. Knowledge is not intelligence
i like your idea. it makes sence what i mean is really ideas. no thought or idea could be original because we can only work with what the world provides us. we cannot think outside of the boundries that create us, we can only work within them. your point makes sence though, one could argue that no thought is original, but some are creative or innovative. this may seem vague but i dont want to repeat myself.