Original Thought?
 

Just something that popped into my mind earlier. Does anyone in today's society trully posess an original thought? I mean, with various inventions (printing press, telegraph, internet, etc.) peoples thoughts have spread around and remarked upon to the point that it's in our everyday life. Have you ever NOT said, "Damn, I wish I had thought of that."? Are we as a society just recycling opinions, propragand, and so on? When we spout out ideas on religion and politics, has it not already been said?

Don't worry about originality.

If you have an idea, discuss openly. The worst that can happen is someone points out that it's not new, that it has been thoroughly considered before, that it was doomed to fail due to this and that. You then move on to another idea. Saves you time.

The only time I think about originality is when I have to publish something and claim it's my own idea. Then I trace my thought process and my research very carefully, and give credit where it's due.

Well, the way I see it, there is no such thing as a completely original idea. New ideas are just variations of something already established. Of course, the possibilites are endless, though.

Do we own our words here at the forums? I eman if we come up with an idea or a feature request first doest that mean I or the person gets the credit?

there's no real original idea anymore, everyone wants the credit and will thus say they thought of it first, and in many cases there's no proof...

yea crazy!

i dare anyone in here to say my thoughts have been...stolen!! from another.
mine is something yet unheard of

Not only is it hard to have a original thought, its hard to have a original thread as this has been done before....Thread

Oh well nice try though :)

Original thoughts no longer cater to the money grubbing Generation. Rehashing the sixties and Seventies, YEAH!! That's where it's at.

I knew it!!! Goes to show you even my mindless rambling isn't original:D

originality now is simply looking at someones previous invention, saying: "what can i do to improve this or make it better."

Well if yout think about it, everything is built up in one collective mind we call society..or humanity, whatever, not the point.

Point is...hell think about language. I mean...coming up with pictures to represent sounds your mouth makes...lol. Sounds silly when said like that.

To me, i find an idea original if it comes from you...doesnt matter if its been done before. Ok seriously what the hell am i talking about? goodnight.

If there were no more original thoughts, than there would be no more inventions and progress in technology. As there is continued inventions and technological progress, it can be deducted every thought that could ever exist has not been expressed.

could you conclude from that that the human mind has endless thinking capacity? (from one person adapting this to make that, someone else adapting that to make this, etc...)

Of course.

Thought is something with possibilities that increase exponentially. The ancient Egyptians had a certain "boundry" of thinking that was dictated by their technology level, environment, etc. An egyptian inventor could never invent an engine because he would not know anything about all of its component sciences that came before it- combustion, metal smelting, machined parts etc.

Similarily, we also have boundries that require advances in thought to expand. An infinity of Un-envisionable concepts exist to each generation.

It applies also to music & art. Think of the millions of songs written since 1950 - yet each one is unique. Everyone is unique, therefore everyone is original.

I am unique and special, just like everyone else.

funny you mention music. it's a prime example of what i was talking about. the whole 90s was taken from the 60s; and it would appear that we are now reverting back to the seventies style music. histroy has a habit of repeating, it seems.

Just like Griffinn (hi peng you :D), I think originality is overrated. I mean : for years and years, artists have been using the same topics to create artworks (love, violence, loneliness among other things) and while they may not be original, their weight and persistence seems to imply that life in fact revolves only around a bunch of these subjects. They may be overused and unoriginal, but crucial nonetheless.

I write a poem to my bf every month, and sometimes I wonder if I've heard the phrase I just wrote before in a song or something...

I think (at least in poems and songs) artists are limited by language, and unless they find another way of expressing themselves, we'll reach a point where everything has been said before... that thought scares me.