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Is it possible to have an entirely original thought?
The other day I tested this by trying to think of a colour that didn't already exist, I came up with combinations of colours but I could not come up with an entirely original colour. This made me think that we are restricted to what we know to some degree, no matter how open minded we may think ourselves to be.
Bharath Nagamuthu
Alex Velazquez
Now, colors by humans are different than colors to others animals because human eyes are limited to just the visible spectrum of light. There are other colors we haven't experience or see. The question I guess would be, how identical is the color that you are thinking to the color that you experience or see. Are they exactly the same, how can you measure the difference and if there is a difference, then you have two colors in front of you, now, which one is real or which one is the entirely original one: the one that you think (a priori) or the one that you see (a posteriori)?
Charles Curt
here's an example let's say we have a child just born and we put him into a locked box with no color and we have a needle give him nutrients. could this kid step out of there stand next to a blank canvas in a blank room and draw a picture with a pencil? (even if he knew how to use a pencil) NO well maybe he could draw the easel or whatever is right in front of him but nothing creative
Vincenzo Sergi
Cheers
Barry Palmer 50+
When Einstein developed the Theory of Relativity, was that thought entirely original? How about Darwin's Theory of Evolution? When Jesus taught that we should love our enemies, it is entirely possible that no one had ever thought this before.
Pabitra Mukhopadhyay 30+
Why everything has to have an origin? Just because we see new things coming out? We have no proof in support of our claim that EVERYTHING has an origin. We simply presume it as a notion.
We also have notions like : the same thing cannot occupy two different locations in space at same point in time or two different things cannot occupy same location in space in same point of time because we do not observe otherwise. Our observation capability is limited and incomplete and is no guarantee of being proving right.
So as long as I am not convinced that everything HAS to have an origin, I prefer to remain skeptical. I know that many prefer to believe that the universe has it's origin in divine creation but that appears to me an utterly uninteresting opening of an otherwise interesting story.
Cheers.
abigail monger
abigail monger
Meghan Thomas
edward long 100+
Frans Kellner 100+
With every attempt to display that thought or rather that mental image you call up images with the listener that are known to them. They first have to listen with a blank mind without reflecting on it and construct that image solely from the description you give.
Colleen Steen 500+
Good point Frans.....if we have an original thought, we may not be able to express it because we need to use known expressions and communication skills. That changes the dynamic of anything being original?
I tend to believe that all information is recycled, sometimes in different forms, so your perception sounds logical to me:>)
Frans Kellner 100+
We both keep smiling and so the world smiles back at us.
Within the mental realm all thought is one construct assembled from countless impressions of the senses, designed in a way that we can survive and thrive. This construct is time based and shared by means of language that represent its parts. Parts that can be recycled, reorganized and replaced to have a more accurate view on our world. By acting on that view the world reflects the flaws and failures of any thought as experience from which we learn and reshape future behaviour.
The moment consciousness isn’t fed any longer by sensory input and diverts from the world, it wanders to another realm that we could call spiritual. Here no thoughts exist but direct experience is made without any control of our thinking identity, almost like in a dream. From there we can capture visions, new to the world and integrate them into our thoughts afterward. This realm I call spiritual and is not time based nor is locally bound to any place. Visions from that spiritual realm can be as complex or much containing that the mind would be overloaded as it would try to express it in any language. The difference between those two realms can be figuratively seen as the different viewpoints an eagle has in the air from the ant that struggles through the grasses.
Within ancient and what we now call primitive cultures there always were technics to initiate all members by introducing them into that spiritual world by means of drugs or fastening , fear and/or pain, seclusion and so on to get a person diverted and out of his or her body and lose all controls. That’s why it is said that to find one self you have to lose yourself first. Nowadays I think most of that knowledge is gone, cultures are distorted and what’s left are practices of torture, abuse and superstition
Colleen Steen 500+
Yes indeed...we both keep smiling and the world smiles back....I LOVE it!
Your mention of ancient cultures, and the topic..."an entirely original thought", reminds me of what I have observed while traveling in various parts of our world, learning about ancient cultures.
It always amazes me that people in different parts of the world, have similarities in music, dances, structures, cooking impliments, tools, etc. They were obviously very seperated physically, and apparently had many of the same ideas that were "original" to themselves and their particular culture. The "original thoughts" were manifesting in many different places, at the same time in ancient history, even though the people were not connected.....fascinating!
Pabitra Mukhopadhyay 30+
Improvisations are mistaken as original thoughts.
Colleen Steen 500+
You make a good point too Pabitra..."original" needs an origin....no origin can be perceived without a frame of reference. What we may think of as original thoughts have a foundation/origin and we are building on them?
Pabitra Mukhopadhyay 30+
So I asked, what is original? The music of my favorite artist? Is she not, unknowingly, made up of her own story I just realized?
To start with, the thought made me sad. My poems are not original too. I wrote them but my life wrote me, my society wrote my life.... who wrote the poetry then?
But when I think, I feel relieved. It so much tore apart my ego. I can still love to be a single note of this gigantic orchestra.
Thanks for the compliments. Sumana says my lips are rather sensuous. :D
edward long 100+
Pabitra Mukhopadhyay 30+
You easily have an infinite regress of receding images if you put two plane mirrors parallel facing each other. Of course resolution puts a practical end to it, but in pure abstraction the regress continues ad infinitum.
I was drawing analogy, not proof.
edward long 100+
Gail . 50+
I perceive ideas (that are composed of thoughts) as being superimposed upon multi-dimensional geometric structures - that are themselves thoughts of larger geometric structures. Given this, the substrate of an idea is not original, but you can color the spaces in as you choose.
In this way, there is nothing new in the multiverse because the substrate is established. But as learning grows, new ways to color it is not only possible, but evident. Take Einstein, for instance. He reinvented physics and changed our common understanding of how reality works. The question remains, however: Did he "remember" it or did he "invent" it?
Evolution is evidence of new ways to color the substrates if, as I believe, if it exists, it is sentient and in control of its destiny.
Lionel Leigo
Solar panels use sunlight ....., if we split the sunlight into its seperated colour spectrum, through a prism, tested each colour, which one would be the most productive for various power productions, PV solar, heat, lighting, and then could each of those be split again into their seperate ones, etc.....
thought about this years ago, but i bet its been done somewhere......right?
Feyisayo Anjorin 50+
It is just that some people dream/think/concieve and stop there; some others work hard to bring the unseen to life.
W. Ying 10+
You can "not come up with an entirely original color"
because our brain process the existing data first and then produces the thought.
We can not obtain any original thought from no data.
"We are restricted to what we know", including those in our DNA.
.
greg dahlen 20+
Amirpouya Ghaemiyan 50+
I mean, a computer gets binary data, and gives a different version of binary data, too. So we are. I think even our dreams in the sleep are made of what we have observed during the day.
But it does not mean we are limited, you know, we do not live in a quantified world. We can chop it limitless times. I mean, we have limited range of colors, and they are combination of each other (if you do not count infrared and ultraviolett ones) but still we can limitless colours that are combination of each other.
W. Ying 10+
Yes, you are right!
Our brain is a computer made from living cells.
(See my comment today herein)
Fritzie Reisner 100+
So it all depends on what you mean by entirely original.
Mark Kurtz 20+
Are humans able to experience new and original thoughts that harm people? Yes, but those new original thoughts that help humankind for good are better and they are admired and valued for sharing with subsequent generations.
Rest assured! You will have new thoughts for you! Be creative and you will think of something someone never experienced before that you can write while sharing with others.
What new thoughts would be good for you?