Original ideas?

[lostNfound]

I’ve fell in line with this ‘Global consciousness’ idea.
To me, it makes sense; I’ve been battling within myself as of late, mentally speaking of course.
With much ill content, I have come to the decision that there are no original thoughts but only regurgitated ideas randomly conjugated within our own noosphere.

Having questioned writer’s block and what it really means brought about the question, ‘what is original thought & does it really exist?’. Have any of us ever really been fortunate enough to experience original though. The truth is that all of our thoughts stem from a shared consciousness, how well each individual is tapped into this web who knows; but I know for certain some more so than others.
The creative writers of any time are the ones that could rewrite Carlotte’s Web a hundred times over and not count the spider out.
Original thought comes from the silken mind as if it were a grind house for the web to come forth, akin to a cocoon for a caterpillar.

I haven't found an answer yet.

Until I do, It's only our actions and not our words that are unoriginal.

Prove me wrong. Please.

 

[thujone]

cynics argue that original thought does not exist because we're so heavily interconnected that any thought we consider original could have been transposed from either direct exposure to another person's similar thought or indirectly through exposure to fragments of another person's original thought filtered through "copycats" who take the original idea and try to make it their own.

i'm reminded of the case in which a person sued j.k. rowling for using ideas in the harry potter series that were supposedly remarkably similar to the ideas used in an older work written by the accuser. could it have been a stolen idea? easily possible. even without knowing it, rowling might have in some direct or indirect form been exposed to the previous work. proving a cynic wrong is a difficult undertaking, as they are not known for taking any stance on an issue that might paint them into the proverbial corner.

on the other hand, who is to say that these two writers were not entirely isolated from each other's ideas and had spawned remarkably similar ideas of their own individual inspirations at different points in time?

let me ask you something. how do you clean an onion? the answer is: probably in a pretty similar fashion to the way most people do it. through individual experience, we often realize we prefer to do things the same way other people do. and how could we even avoid it? i mean, we all eat the same way, piss the same way, fuck the same way (what i mean is the mechanics are the same) so why isn't it possible that we can be inspired in the same way?

now, if you accept that then you're playing right into the hands of the cynic, as one will deftly point out that regardless of whether or not we have an isolated spark of genuine creativity, it can't be officially considered original if millions of other people are capable of manifesting the same idea or feeling the same sensations in different places; eras, and circumstances.

i tend to side with the cynics on this. i mean shit, da vinci stole ideas from nature. lots of other people have had the same idea. it's impossible to avoid being unoriginal, so resign yourself to that and you'll be able to start making better use of the idea fragments of others and get better at making the unoriginal resemble original. if you just sit around not writing because you're worried about being unoriginal, you'll still remain unoriginal as a result of inactivity.

well, my two cents anyway...

 

[CoffeeDrinker]

what if someone where to look through all the books in the world, and know all the songs and poems and encyclopedias in the world, and then write something that is purposely different and has no point of reference to any of those ideas?

 

[thujone]

it's pointless to entertain that thought because there has never been anyone with enough time and opportunity in their life to know all the art and literature in the whole world, and the more we advance the more our population grows and consequently the more culture we produce which means that even with extended life spans it would still be impossible.

ideas don't spring forth from nothingness. if you lived in darkness your whole life, you'd still have to know that there is something worth seeing in order to desire light. this is how we progress. inventions are never arbitrary; ideas develop to fill a void, so if we don't recognize the void and what causes it then there is no opportunity for an idea to spring forth.

i'm constantly brainstorming. it's a compulsion i have, to always stretch my mind as far as i can make it go. yet, without something to build on; building blocks if you will, i can't just manifest a genuine idea because it would make no sense at all. this void i'm refering to is what lends context to an idea, so that it makes sense.

now here's the real mindfuck: without context, an idea can't be grasped. if nobody can understand it, how then would it even be possible to recognize a truly original, unique thought?

having said all that, there's still a good chance we're all generating these mystical original ideas on a constant basis. do you notice that sometimes your brain is filled with noise? like static, we get completely disconnected thoughts crossing through our consciousness every now and then. i only realized this phenomenon myself through deep meditation, when quieting the mind is crucial. some really crazy shit comes to surface when you sweep the floors of your conscious mind, but they just dissipate as noise because they don't make enough sense to constitute a fully-formed idea. chasing after the illusive original idea is like chasing after shadows in the dark.

 

[NomNomNom]

I’ve fell in line with this ‘Global consciousness’ idea.
To me, it makes sense; I’ve been battling within myself as of late, mentally speaking of course.
With much ill content, I have come to the decision that there are no original thoughts but only regurgitated ideas randomly conjugated within our own noosphere.

Having questioned writer’s block and what it really means brought about the question, ‘what is original thought & does it really exist?’. Have any of us ever really been fortunate enough to experience original though. The truth is that all of our thoughts stem from a shared consciousness, how well each individual is tapped into this web who knows; but I know for certain some more so than others.
The creative writers of any time are the ones that could rewrite Carlotte’s Web a hundred times over and not count the spider out.
Original thought comes from the silken mind as if it were a grind house for the web to come forth, akin to a cocoon for a caterpillar.

I haven't found an answer yet.

Until I do, It's only our actions and not our words that are unoriginal.

Prove me wrong. Please.

Humans are all bags of meat with electrical storms on top. What i mean is that, while I am "original" in the sense that nobody that has ever lived has had the exact, precise life that i have, aborigines in the outback still have much in common with me, even though i grew up in the northeast of the US.

We both need food, shelter, and clothing. We both want affection, validation of our feelings, and to improve our quality of life.

The problem with going down this particular rabbit hole is that the concept of an "original idea" is a human construct! It's not possible to attempt to be "original" and to then arrive an a destination point that no other person has ever arrived at. Words are an imperfect medium for conveying thoughts/feelings/wants/desires.

Do not think of an elephant. Don't do it. Just please, do anything but think of an elephant.

Gotcha.

You can't know or understand black without white (see: Alan Watts). If you were to truly think of an "original idea" and were somehow able to convey it to people, nobody would be able to understand it. Things are all relative to what we already know.

You can however come up with a formula that nobody else ever has before: A transgendered filipina living in Croatia discovers the works of Kurt Vonnegut whilst simultaneously smoking pages from Kafka's "Metamorphosis" and eating 2 ounces of psylocibin mushrooms per day. Is that an "original idea" ? Well, nobody else has said precisely that so maybe so, however, many people are familiar with each of those concepts indivisually, so probably not.

What i'm saying is that, if you're using English to convey your ideas, you're wielding beeps and boops that already have baggage, that people already attach other stereotypes or pre-conceived notions to. Sure, you can develop a construct of beeps and boops that are so far out there, that even the most hardened cynical intellectual would have a hard time decoding and putting in perspective, but it's likely that any such thing would simply be labeled as gibberish.

 

[NomNomNom]

Chuck Palahniuk would say that you are attempting to be "the camera behind the camera behind the camera, the last, final, and unimpeachable truth". I say, don't try! If you're trying to be an observer of the observer, of the observer, you my friend are in the game, you're part of the construct. Just BE and anyone who doesn't like it can take a flying leap at a rolling doughnut!

**For the record, i really, really like this thread and the idea behind it.

 

[Max Power]

Depends on what you consider original. If I remove then add one extra word to Great Expectations is it now original? What about two words? Three? So on.

My own personal opinion is that if you strive to create something that is new (to YOU) and you're having fun, that's all that matters.

 

[DamagedLemon]

You can however come up with a formula that nobody else ever has before: A transgendered filipina living in Croatia discovers the works of Kurt Vonnegut whilst simultaneously smoking pages from Kafka's "Metamorphosis" and eating 2 ounces of psylocibin mushrooms per day. Is that an "original idea" ? Well, nobody else has said precisely that so maybe so, however, many people are familiar with each of those concepts indivisually, so probably not.

Mmmmm Kurt Vonnegut and Kafka and shrooms I enjoy all of that.
Not sure about my enjoyment of the transgenered filipina or Croatia though.