Origin

[leerock89]

For any of you who watch SG-1, no this is not a talk about the Ori or it's religion. Dam, that sounded lame... at any rate, to the real topic. The type of work I do allows me to think about whatever I want while I work, for it is tedious and repetitive and you don't have to be a genuis to do the work. So the other day I was mindlessly working and a thought came to me. It was an old thought that I had in my young years but it creeped back up and I started to think about it; There is NO original thought. I'm the type of persons that believes that we humans never created anything, whether it is a famous saying or a science. All we do is discover something that has been and is, for a very long time. So saying that, I thought that there is no such thing as original thought. Granted, others thought of an idea or theory or philosophy before, but even then that wasn't original, it is only slapped with "original" because the ones who first thought it up were able to write it down. Even now, with all of our history, we have nothing new to offer for it already is, we just need to discover it. So what does everything think of this? Talk to me...I'm bored...

[Russkie]

An interesting thesis.

Now that I think of it, I guess I could agree that man has not created, but only discovered... It makes sense. However, I believe God was the one who gave man the ability to discover, and therefore "create" things that the earth couldnt do itself. (i.e cars, computers, aircraft)

[Viduus]

Intrestingly enough, I struggle with the concept of originality quite a lot. I used to write short stories and considered being a creative writing major for a while, but I discovered that everything that I wrote could be looked at and said, oh, that's like the same thing x person wrote. For example, I tried to write a science fiction comedy, and after reading the first page or so I realized I just sound like I'm trying to copy Douglas Adams. Fantasy that I'd try to write would end up sounding like Terry Brooks. Very discouraging.

And then I realized, anything that someone tries to do will most likely have been though of or done by someone else already. It's just the way of the world. It's very much like that one episode of South Park where Butters is trying to be some evil guy and everything he thinks of his side kick tells him that "the Simpsons did it". Everything anyone does, you can take a look at and say "<blank> did it".

I haven't found a solution for this by the way. I've stopped writing stories because of it, I can't really stand looking at my own work and thinking that I'm somehow a fraud. Am I being overly critial and analyzing it too much? Perhaps, but... that's just the feeling that I have.

[a2ng0d]

Now here's a wake up call to the noggin.

I agree, but only to a certain extent. I think lee's statement that nothing is created but only discovered only works for naturally occuring phenomena, like the theory of relativity. all naturally occuring things in nature/science, like the equations and all, have always existed, yes. We know that Sir Isaac Newton did not invent gravity, it was always there. same with medicine. it is all yet to be discovered. but what about inventions? we all know that sketches cars and helicopters and submarines were first found in Da Vinci's books, but then again, doesn't that mean that he created them? they did not exist before that time. you cannot find any knowledge of automobiles or the like in the time of Marcus Aurelius or anytime before the Renaissance.
We know that Benjamin Franklin did not invent electricity, for electricity was always there, but can't we give Carl Djerassi the credit for the birth control pill?

[animex09]

i sort of agree. see, i also think than man hasn't created anything but discovered. I think we were givin all we needed by nature so we can 'discover' ways to work with it or manipulate it. So i guess you can say we haven't really created anything on our own, just combime things that were already there and turn them into something else. I guess some people would call this inventing something but I still believe it just the two original things put together giving the illusion that something was created. My point is, anything that humans create can be broken into its original substances that first created it. I'm not good at making myself clear.

[Sun Tzu]

hmm...... A very nihilistic perspective to look at this.

Let me put it this way, if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make a sound? From a philisophical perspective absolutely not, no one is around to perceive it so it doesn't exist. And from a realists, the crash sends out waves that make up what we call sound, so yes.

Your looking at it from a realists perspective, Human beings have no original thought because everything we do has already been created. We don't build, we only harness and shape.

So let me start off my point by telling you a story. Yesterday a 18 year old kid won the jack pot at the local casino, his name was Jake. Jake has a wife and a 3 year old kid at home to feed, he receives no support from his parents and doesn't take government checks. He works as a waiter, and barely makes end meat. This jack pot will allow Jake to go back to school, get his college education, raise his child, and possibly give him a decent chance at getting a college education himself.

Until this moment Jake didn't exist for any of you, however by telling you all about him I have been able to create Jake in your minds. Jake exists now.

The basic underlying current here is the fact that perspective defines and creates our reality. And since our conscience is subjective instead of objective, we are able to craft the world around us. Say I saw a giant purple elephant in my garage. You would be completely unable to prove to me that there wasnt a giant purple elephant parked next to my car. Sure you could run out and look with your own eyes, groping around on the concrete for some tangible shred of my sanity. But you would still be unable to prove to me that there wasnt a elephant out there. That is because what you see, and what I see are two entirely different things. While you might perceive empty space, I might perceive the largest land mammal on earth. The elephant is real to me, even if its not to you.

And so since reality is subjective you will have to agree with me that everything that we do is original. You see, philosophy didn't exist until we said it exists, mathematics didn't exist until someone scrawled a couple numbers into the sand on a beach, and science didn't bother rearing its ugly head until we damn well told it to. We humans are the masters of our world, creating and shaping it as we see fit. Regardless of whether or not the information or idea is out there floating around, it doesn't have any tangible reality until we choose to acknowledge it.

Cogito ergo sum
I think, therefore I am.

[a2ng0d]

Kudos, Sun Tzu. That was a very good read.

[analogZero]

It's been said before that all knowledge is free. The only restraint is that you haven't found it yet. All the knowledge that could possibly be is right before you. It is the basis of thought, the lowest form of the mind and the most powerful seed in the universe. The pursuit of science is the pursuit of knowledge and the attempt of mankind to discover all that is to be discovered in the realm of what's real and has, does and will exist. Knowledge could be infinite for all we know, and as a result, the number of permutations and combinations that can be made in shaping what we will know in our lifetime is the act of infinite individuality. Knowledge can last in the minds of people over generations or be lost, and though you may not know the lifetime of a thought, that it may have once died and been lost to history, it may still yet rise again after many years and prove it's worth to you and how you perceive the world abound. It's how everyone learns, and though you may have accumulated a vast amount of knowledge in the time you've had, there is still yet thoughts beyond your imagination that will come...and yes, they've likely been thought of before, but they'll be elemental in your growth.

[Tovarishch]

Philosophy has always been of interest to me, and this makes my mind whirl with thoughts. It is an interesting idea; to say that any claim of originality is a lie is indeed of interest to me. I shall think on this some more.
Sun Tzu:
It should be kept in mind that while we may say that we are masters of our world, it does not mean that it is true. How could it be, when poverty and crime abound, and we are continually at the mercy of the elements? Perhaps the only reason that such problems exist is that we count them as such- a problem.
Any ideas?
-Tovarishch

[fejknick]

hmm...... A very nihilistic perspective to look at this.

Let me put it this way, if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make a sound? From a philisophical perspective absolutely not, no one is around to perceive it so it doesn't exist. And from a realists, the crash sends out waves that make up what we call sound, so yes.

Your looking at it from a realists perspective, Human beings have no original thought because everything we do has already been created. We don't build, we only harness and shape.

So let me start off my point by telling you a story. Yesterday a 18 year old kid won the jack pot at the local casino, his name was Jake. Jake has a wife and a 3 year old kid at home to feed, he receives no support from his parents and doesn't take government checks. He works as a waiter, and barely makes end meat. This jack pot will allow Jake to go back to school, get his college education, raise his child, and possibly give him a decent chance at getting a college education himself.

Until this moment Jake didn't exist for any of you, however by telling you all about him I have been able to create Jake in your minds. Jake exists now.

The basic underlying current here is the fact that perspective defines and creates our reality. And since our conscience is subjective instead of objective, we are able to craft the world around us. Say I saw a giant purple elephant in my garage. You would be completely unable to prove to me that there wasnt a giant purple elephant parked next to my car. Sure you could run out and look with your own eyes, groping around on the concrete for some tangible shred of my sanity. But you would still be unable to prove to me that there wasnt a elephant out there. That is because what you see, and what I see are two entirely different things. While you might perceive empty space, I might perceive the largest land mammal on earth. The elephant is real to me, even if its not to you.

And so since reality is subjective you will have to agree with me that everything that we do is original. You see, philosophy didn't exist until we said it exists, mathematics didn't exist until someone scrawled a couple numbers into the sand on a beach, and science didn't bother rearing its ugly head until we damn well told it to. We humans are the masters of our world, creating and shaping it as we see fit. Regardless of whether or not the information or idea is out there floating around, it doesn't have any tangible reality until we choose to acknowledge it.

Cogito ergo sum
I think, therefore I am.

Thats like saying there is no world outside when you close your eyes and go to sleep. The world don't pause, it don't stop. It keeps spinning, no matter what you think or do. Sure we live in a holographical world and that we change reality with our minds. BUT before us someone had to think about the big-bang to make it happen, witch would result in a god theory. And then we don't have control over reality anymore and can therefore not call ourselves masters of our minds. Someone thought about us before we did.

Im not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying that thinking outside the box is so inside the box.

[Sun Tzu]

Sun Tzu:
It should be kept in mind that while we may say that we are masters of our world, it does not mean that it is true. How could it be, when poverty and crime abound, and we are continually at the mercy of the elements? Perhaps the only reason that such problems exist is that we count them as such- a problem.
Any ideas?
-Tovarishch

Perhaps the only reason Im bringing this up is because Im supposed to be studying it right now rather than using this site to procrastinate, but hell I learn a basic concept much better when Im forced to implement it immediately.

Before you are to make sense of my argument you will have to understand two perspectives in sociology, sociology being the study of the inner workings of society on a macro level. The argument of structural functionalism states that everything that makes up our society is there for a reason, that if there was any sort of inefficiency it would have been been eliminated swiftly and efficiently.

The second argument is the social conflict theory. The social conflict theory states that society is in a constant state of conflict, and that these conflicts fuel social change and innovations. Society is seperated into the haves and the have nots, with the have nots trying to get what the haves... have, and the people that possess what the others want trying to keep it out of the hands that don't possess it in the interest of controlling the class below them. For example you go to school to learn, you are the have not, the teacher that imparts the information unto you is the Have. The teacher has complete control over what information you receive and gives you it in the interest of receiving a service in exchange, in this case you filling out a worksheet.

Now Structural functionalism and social conflict theory aren't two entirely different theories, and there is room for them to coexist. For example a structural functional approach to conflict theory would state that social conflict exists because it performs a purpose. Social conflict allows for the means of social mobility.

So why is there poverty and crime? Because the conflict between the rich and the poor, the haves and the have nots serves a purpose in the overall functioning of our society. The poor provide unskilled manual labor for the rich, performing jobs that don't award much prestige or wage, however someone has to do it and seeing as how every person on the planet is capable of cleaning a toilet bowl there is a great deal of competition for the unpleasant job, making its value to society go down, in addition to its wage. Are you going to pay more than minimum wage to a person, when theres 50 other people outside the door capable of performing that janitorial position just as well as the person you currently have?

So what does social conflict do? It allows the person to specialize into a certain position, such as doctor that while still just as necessary as a clean working environment, have much less competition and require a greater deal of specialization.

So again why is there poverty and crime? Because it serves a purpose.

Perhaps I went a little off topic, and I feel that I was unclear in my original post. You are viewing argument in completely the wrong light, and I feel you need to look closer at my final paragraph.

And so since reality is subjective you will have to agree with me that everything that we do is original. You see, philosophy didn't exist until we said it exists, mathematics didn't exist until someone scrawled a couple numbers into the sand on a beach, and science didn't bother rearing its ugly head until we damn well told it to. We humans are the masters of our world, creating and shaping it as we see fit. Regardless of whether or not the information or idea is out there floating around, it doesn't have any tangible reality until we choose to acknowledge it.

While granted nothing exists until I say it exists it, for me to acknowledge its existence there has to be something there to acknowledge. For example, objective sensory input. Now this objective sensory input is in all cases real, however not real, until we choose to put it through the filter that is our brain, turning it into subjective input.

So, for all intents and purposes the world out there is indeed "real", and "solid" however it doesn't become real to us individually until we choose to run it through the subjective filter. So there can be a hurricane rolling through Florida, however that hurricane doesn't exist until the citizens of Florida choose to acknowledge the sensory input that the hurricane was providing. People are more than capable of simply shutting themselves off and refusing to acknowledge the hurricanes existence, and they will be none the wiser of its presence. Of course the mind will also have to ignore the fact that your getting thrown around my 100 mph winds as well as getting smacked in the head with hale and rain. While this is incredibly unlikely due to our brains being built to acknowledge and respond to external sensory input it is not unheard of.

For example the album "Tommy" by The Who tells a tale of a child who is suffering from an extreme form of PTSD. Tommy refuses to acknowledge anything visually, auditory, and is completely mute. While all of Tommy's sensory organs work perfectly fine, Tommy chooses not to use them preferring the contents of his own thoughts as opposed to the content of the world around him. Tommy exists in his own world, and that world is real to him though it isn't real to anyone else.

Does that help make things a little clearer?

[fejknick]

So, for all intents and purposes the world out there is indeed "real", and "solid" however it doesn't become real to us individually until we choose to run it through the subjective filter. So there can be a hurricane rolling through Florida, however that hurricane doesn't exist until the citizens of Florida choose to acknowledge the sensory input that the hurricane was providing. People are more than capable of simply shutting themselves off and refusing to acknowledge the hurricanes existence, and they will be none the wiser of its presence. Of course the mind will also have to ignore the fact that your getting thrown around my 100 mph winds as well as getting smacked in the head with hale and rain. While this is incredibly unlikely due to our brains being built to acknowledge and respond to external sensory input it is not unheard of.

For example the album "Tommy" by The Who tells a tale of a child who is suffering from an extreme form of PTSD. Tommy refuses to acknowledge anything visually, auditory, and is completely mute. While all of Tommy's sensory organs work perfectly fine, Tommy chooses not to use them preferring the contents of his own thoughts as opposed to the content of the world around him. Tommy exists in his own world, and that world is real to him though it isn't real to anyone else.

Does that help make things a little clearer?

That cleared up a bit yes.

And it made me think about somethings to, so here goes.
First off, the hurricane theory is a good one. It states that the hurricane exist when they accept it. And without CNN or any other media i in sweden wouldn't even know about it. So before media the world was what you knew. 2000 years ago, the bible. The apocalypse, think about the tsunami in thailand. That was the end of the world for some of them, allot of them. So without media it would have been spoken of like the end of the world. So does that mean we got smarter or that we got help somewhere along the line? (Im thinking ID theory)

The tommy example is a good one, its like telling a delusional person that he's delusional. He wont buy it.
And since i have been a psychonaout for some years in my life, i know from personal experience that the world is your mind, nothing else. You create this every day. And therefore you can manipulate what you see. Hallucinations can be reality if you don't know that you have taken a mind altering substance.

[analogZero]

Sensory perception can be a cause of deceptive analysis when it comes to the 'real world'. For instance, the problem of being colour blind deprives you of a certain level of information about the world you see. In Tommy's case, it's easily said that he decided to reject one world in favour of another, ignoring reality in favour of one he produced, but it doesn't negate the other world. Imagination may be a grand source for original thought, but it has infinite potential. Now not all of us have inept, or dead senses, and certainly most people who've been in the middle of a hurricane can't tune it out. Sure it's easy to argue the potential's there, but to disregard something, to decide that it's not there because you'd prefer it weren't is ignorant, or because you're unaware is short sighted. That's not to sound offensive, more to literally say you're ignoring and/or disregarding what does or could exists. Being snobbish about what does and does not exist won't create or destroy that which is, regardless of whether or not you're aware of it. A thought is much like a carrot (feel free to substitute for your own favorite root vegetable here). If you were to plant carrots in a wild field, they would grow on their own and you likely wouldn't know they were there. However, if you were to pass by one and decide to pluck it out from the ground, you'd have a carrot, and you might even notice that there are other carrots growing nearby. thought is much the same, I'd say, in that it's there waiting for you to find it, you simply have to pluck it from the ground, so to speak.

[fejknick]

Off-course the world is still the real world even if i choose to deny it, I'm just saying that the "real" world might look different to different people. As you said, a color blind person wont see the world as i do. But he is still reading the same world like me, but without colors.

So it's just one world/universe then?
And our brain is the filter that renders the impulses to pictures for us?
Then by believing in Darwin when he said we come from monkeys is kinda stupid. How could our brain just be? I mean, that our mind is what it is, shows at-least me that somewhere along the line, evolution got Intelligent help, a push in the right direction.

[analogZero]

Well there is the manner in which we perceive, but their is also the manner which is. The world has intricacies far beyond what we'll understand in our lifetime and therefore it's impossible for us to see it for what it truly is. Much the same way that we only see what's available to the small gamut of light our eyes can accept, and the range of decibels our ears can acknowledge. We're limited in our intake of what the universe can offer. We're limited to the intake of what a person can communicate, being that our thoughts are limited to the ability of our language. We'll likely never know or understand most things as a whole as a result of our limitations, but we can interpret through our imagination and deductive reasoning. After all most of the universe's great mysteries have been uncovered this way.
Regardless, all this metaphysical droning is taking us off topic a little. proceed, good people.