Is there such a thing as original thinking?

LOVEthroughINTELLECT · Oct 16, 2005

Is there such a thing as original thinking or do we all merely recycle pieces of existing thinking and put them into different combinations and different words?

Sometimes I think that everybody who uses language is saying the same things and that disagreement is imagined.

Lifesaver · Oct 16, 2005

You have a point. I don't at all agree that everyone basically believes in the same things but words it differently; but that the great majority, if not all, beliefs people have, fall within a rather small number of different tendencies of thought which first appeared in classical Antiquity or in the early Middle Ages.

And this is only about general theories, general philosophies, not about specific beliefs, which may vary as widely as individuals vary.

LOVEthroughINTELLECT · Oct 16, 2005

Lifesaver said:
You have a point. I don't at all agree that everyone basically believes in the same things but words it differently; but that the great majority, if not all, beliefs people have, fall within a rather small number of different tendencies of thought which first appeared in classical Antiquity or in the early Middle Ages.

And this is only about general theories, general philosophies, not about specific beliefs, which may vary as widely as individuals vary.

Another way of stating my position:

We all think the same things. The only variation is the degree to which individuals' thinking is refined. Disagreement is the perception that one's thinking is unique compared to another's when in reality it is merely a more-refined or less-refined version of another's thinking.

Political discourse is a good illustration. As I observe liberals and conservatives angrily arguing over things like the role of government I often find myself thinking that they are all saying the same thing.

Why then do people believe that they disagree with each other? Well, I think disagreement is a perception that a few people create, maintain and exploit for economic and political gain. If pro-life and pro-choice individuals were to see that they really have the same fundamental thinking, a lot of power and money would change hands, if you know what I mean.

Indeed, I have been told by a source that I have every reason to believe is well-informed that the pro-life and pro-choice leaders have a history of secretly meeting in private on friendly terms to look for common ground. I can't furnish any proof of it, but I don't think it is mere hearsay. Anyway, if it is true it shows that so much is staked in the public perception that people fundamentally disagree that people who take sides on the most divisive issues have to hide from the spotlight to work on finding common ground.

DailyBlessings · Oct 16, 2005

LOVEthroughINTELLECT said:
Is there such a thing as original thinking?

Sure: we call it insanity.

LOVEthroughINTELLECT · Oct 16, 2005

LOVEthroughINTELLECT said:
Another way of stating my position:

We all think the same things. The only variation is the degree to which individuals' thinking is refined. Disagreement is the perception that one's thinking is unique compared to another's when in reality it is merely a more-refined or less-refined version of another's thinking.

Political discourse is a good illustration. As I observe liberals and conservatives angrily arguing over things like the role of government I often find myself thinking that they are all saying the same thing.

Why then do people believe that they disagree with each other? Well, I think disagreement is a perception that a few people create, maintain and exploit for economic and political gain. If pro-life and pro-choice individuals were to see that they really have the same fundamental thinking, a lot of power and money would change hands, if you know what I mean.

Indeed, I have been told by a source that I have every reason to believe is well-informed that the pro-life and pro-choice leaders have a history of secretly meeting in private on friendly terms to look for common ground. I can't furnish any proof of it, but I don't think it is mere hearsay. Anyway, if it is true it shows that so much is staked in the public perception that people fundamentally disagree that people who take sides on the most divisive issues have to hide from the spotlight to work on finding common ground.

Maybe I should not have used pro-life and pro-choice.

Anyway, let's please not get into a discussion of the morality of that issue. Such discussions are for the Ethics/Morality forum.

This is about thought and disagreement, not about ethics or morality. The pro-life/pro-choice dichotomy was just a good illustration of what might be falsely perceived disagreement.

Lifesaver · Oct 16, 2005

No, then we disagree (and I mean we really disagree; we believe in things that are actually different).
You are saying all people believe in the same things, but are for some reason led to believe they disagree because they use different wording to express their beliefs.

The role of government is a question over which many people genuinely disagree. Some think it would be better to have a government controled economy; others think it is better to have individuals make their personal economic decisions, with government restricted to guaranteeing that freedom. Yet others think that the government should cease to exist altogether, that this would be best.

These are just three examples of actually different beliefs, different opinions. It is not some words that have different meanings; the ideas behind each option are indeed different.

LOVEthroughINTELLECT · Oct 16, 2005

Lifesaver said:
You are saying all people believe in the same things, but are for some reason led to believe they disagree because they use different wording to express their beliefs.

Actually, I said that people think the same things. I didn't say anything about belief.

Most people think about unicorns. But only a few people believe that unicorns correspond with anything outside of the images and stories that we imagine about them.

I am assuming that human thought is a finite collective. People just think different parts of that collective and in different combinations. Thinking thoughts and combinations of thoughts different from other people's is not disagreeing with them. It is simply thinking differently!

But we don't merely think thoughts. We share thoughts as well. We mostly share thoughts by using language. And since language use varies between individuals as much as fingerprints, it is easy to mistake words that don't coincide for thoughts that don't coincide. If we could all use language the same we would likely find that we all think the same thoughts.

If disagreement really exists, it is likely over the value, status, reliability, etc. of thoughts. But how can two people know that they disagree with each other on something when neither really knows what the other thinks?

And is there such a thing as an original thought? Can a person think a thought that nobody else has ever thought?

psychedelicist · Oct 16, 2005

There's a pointless new branch of science springing up called memetics that attempts to apply an evolution-like theory to ideas. According to it, there are no truly 'new' ideas, only old ideas being refined, vaguely akin to biological evolution. A truly 'new' idea would be as absurd as a new species of animal appearing out of thin air.

Of course the mechanism for this 'memetic evolution' is nothing like biological evolution, since sadly even the most stupid of ideas can thrive and evolve into something yet more stupid (dianetics becoming scientology, for example), or in an even sadder case, a truly genius idea exposed to the wrong minds and becoming stupider (eatern religion becoming this 'new age' nonesense fad).

But the similarity exists in that there can be no truly novel idea. Perhaps if exposed to an intelligent mind, an existing idea might be refined and sharpened, in order to coexist with the facts (much like genesis must now be interpreted more metaphorically to still hold up against new facts about geology and cosmology), and through this, we can achieve a better, more true idea about something. (an amusing form of this is "OS012", if you would like to google it) But, it does not seem like a truly novel idea could exist, since any idea we make must somehow be grounded in reality (or the perception of). A truly novel idea would have to be a truly unreal idea, and an unreal idea can no more be created in our minds than a color that we have never seen.

elman · Oct 18, 2005

LOVEthroughINTELLECT said:
Is there such a thing as original thinking or do we all merely recycle pieces of existing thinking and put them into different combinations and different words?

Sometimes I think that everybody who uses language is saying the same things and that disagreement is imagined.

Love is loving action, not through intellect.

Moros · Oct 19, 2005

I think by now 100% of everything has been thought at one point or another. What is always changing is the way things are explained and defined.

Yamialpha · Oct 19, 2005

Yes and no-we can think different ideas by branching off from other ideas. However, the human mind can't seem to go on its own tangent. We can think of new colors and shapes that perhaps no one else has thought of, but they still are connected to what we previously know. A new color would be a new mixture of other colors, but still confined to the color spectrum. A new shape would still be confined by the 3 spatial dimensions. In all I'd say that any new thought we'd think wouldn't be something completely new-it'd be a combination of old thoughts no one else has bothered to make.

artjack · Oct 22, 2005

no, people do think a new that is how we discover new things, we would not have reached where we are today if we had not like "E=Mc2" & this is proof of new thinking at a time we needed it. Someone can take years of work to compleat the findings & it can take more than a generation so it is more important what we do with this new information.

Yamialpha · Oct 23, 2005

But that's still taking old thoughts and approaching them in a different manner that creates new thoughts that are still connected to old thougts. It's as though we can think differently about time and space, but we can't think outside of time and space (if that makes any sense).

LOVEthroughINTELLECT · Oct 23, 2005

Yamialpha said:
It's as though we can think differently about time and space, but we can't think outside of time and space (if that makes any sense).

I am not disagreeing or arguing (I have asserted that disagreement may not be real anyway ). I am just curious. Is the metaphysical part of space and time?

chava · Oct 25, 2005

There is, Where else would the computer have come from?

psychedelicist · Oct 25, 2005

chava said:
There is, Where else would the computer have come from?

Refining older ideas about technology and introducing or mixing in other useful ideas. The same way anything was created. There is nothing really'new', but closer to an evolution of the idea of technology (to once again use the memetics example). Evolution creates nothing truly 'new', which would have to be something akin to a fully functioning mammal popping into existence from nothing; rather, helpful traits are kept while older obsolete ones die out, and through this process we get a different species of animal than it was before (after enough changes). This is stil not considered 'new' since it is really the older creature responding and adapting to a changing environment.

artjack · Oct 28, 2005

that which does not exist can not exist untill the time is right for it. it will not be outside time as without time it does not exist unless it has existed before time and free of time or not phyisical as time erodes physicality,id say time is a phyiscal mechanics so before there was any phyiscal being. you wont find any new things in the past, look to the future

Sojourner<>< · Oct 28, 2005

LOVEthroughINTELLECT said:
Is there such a thing as original thinking or do we all merely recycle pieces of existing thinking and put them into different combinations and different words?

Sometimes I think that everybody who uses language is saying the same things and that disagreement is imagined.

There's plenty of room in the use of language to express new ideas, but does the human mind actually create ideas?

I don't think so.

Ideas are really just solutions to problems aren't they?

I would have to argue that all possible solutions for a given problem already exist, we just find them and then implement them. Therefore there are never really any new ideas at all, just newly discovered ones.

I think you are right about disagreements.

If two parties disagree about a particular truth but neither are in error, are they really disagreeing at all? I think that sometimes people fail to see the dimensionality of a particular truth. I.e. from party A's perspective the truth may look totally different than it does from party B's perspective. Take calvanism vs arminianism for instance. Is it God's sovereignty or free will? Perhaps both are true but are two sides to the same coin, depending on which side you're looking from.

tiredimmigrant · Oct 29, 2005

Creative thinking yes, though we stand on the shoulders of giants, we reach just a little higher.

PKJ · Oct 31, 2005

I you lived in a box you'd probably think you've been everywhere in the world. Then you discover a little whole in the box, and see that there's another box. Then you think you've been everywhere, then notice another box, and so on.

You don't know what you don't know. So there has to be something you don't know. Collectivly, it's the same. Truth is we don't know a thing about 99% of what there is for the simple reason that we expect our tiny 1% to be the whole hundred.

Is there such a thing as original thinking?

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