Is original thought possible?

[Sculptor1]

All thought is orignal.
Its apparent similarity to the thoughts of others is an illusion.

Another way of looking at it is this.
Ask yourself was there a time when there were no human thoughts.
Now there is such a thing as human thought therefore all thoughts, even ones that appear similar to others had to be thought first by someone. QED original thought is possible.
In fact the very existence of thought means that it would be impossible to consider the idea that no thought is original.

That is to confuse original and unique. In an earlier post Sy Borg illustrated the influence on thought and practice of culture by referring to feral child. The origin of particular thoughts and practices is in culture, except perhaps for solitary species.

Otherwise,I agree that subjective uniqueness is what frees mankind to create 'original' work.

You have missed my point about appearance.
If two people think that icecream is nice, they are both the authors of those thoughts, thought they might appear to a third party as unoriginal. But both thoughts come from two sepatate individuals and cannot be the same thought, since they cannot have the same basis. You can test this by mining the thoughts more deeply to find differences. At some point you come across a type of icecream that one of them dislikes whilst the other likes. Thus showing that the apparently "unoriginal" thought is actually two original thoughts.
It is simply the case that all thoughts that I have originate in my brain and are not the thoughts of others.
WE can take words like thought, idea, concept, notion, but unless we specifically define one of these words as an object we cannot deny their origin in the brains of individuals.

I would accept that a notion or concept can be the same as another one, or even an idea, but thoughts are personal and subjective.

And so as with many things, philosophy is semantics.

So lets take an idea as a putatively objective notion that bears comparison "externally" with other such notions.

The thread would then be, can you have an original idea? The answer still has to be yes, since their were no ideas before their were humans, and their is no doubt that many of the ideas we experience have known origins.

[Sculptor1]

All thought is orignal.
Its apparent similarity to the thoughts of others is an illusion.

Another way of looking at it is this.
Ask yourself was there a time when there were no human thoughts.
Now there is such a thing as human thought therefore all thoughts, even ones that appear similar to others had to be thought first by someone. QED original thought is possible.
In fact the very existence of thought means that it would be impossible to consider the idea that no thought is original.

That is to confuse original and unique. In an earlier post Sy Borg illustrated the influence on thought and practice of culture by referring to feral child. The origin of particular thoughts and practices is in culture, except perhaps for solitary species.

Otherwise,I agree that subjective uniqueness is what frees mankind to create 'original' work.

You have missed my point about appearance.
If two people think that icecream is nice, they are both the authors of those thoughts, thought they might appear to a third party as unoriginal. But both thoughts come from two sepatate individuals and cannot be the same thought, since they cannot have the same basis. You can test this by mining the thoughts more deeply to find differences. At some point you come across a type of icecream that one of them dislikes whilst the other likes. Thus showing that the apparently "unoriginal" thought is actually two original thoughts.
It is simply the case that all thoughts that I have originate in my brain and are not the thoughts of others.
WE can take words like thought, idea, concept, notion, but unless we specifically define one of these words as an object we cannot deny their origin in the brains of individuals.

I would accept that a notion or concept can be the same as another one, or even an idea, but thoughts are personal and subjective.

And so as with many things, philosophy is semantics.

So lets take an idea as a putatively objective notion that bears comparison "externally" with other such notions.

The thread would then be, can you have an original idea? The answer still has to be yes, since their were no ideas before their were humans, and their is no doubt that many of the ideas we experience have known origins.

[Pattern-chaser]

Can I have an original thought...?

I think this depends on what you mean by "original". You can subdivide thoughts and ideas, and if some of them are old, but one or two are new, is the overall thought/idea "new"? Isn't a single unique juxtaposition of ideas 'new'? And if an idea has been considered before, but you don't know, is the idea new because it's new to you?

On the other hand, after many generations of humans have lived and died, do you really expect to have an original idea, one that no-one has ever thought before? It's possible, of course, but after so long, how likely is it? And is it in any way a failing if you fail to come up with anything genuinely unique?

Yeah, pretty much I think we have original ideas all day long. There have been about 108 billion people in the history of the planet. Currently the average life span is about 70 years but for most of history it was below 35 years. There are about 1.1 billion seconds in 35 years. So that is about 1.2 x 10 to the 20th person seconds in the history of the planet. Discounting sleeping and say the first three years of life, that would make a smaller number. But lets say you can have a thought in half a second, that would even it out to about 1 x 10 to the 20th thoughts in the history of humans if folks had another thought every half second through all waking hours starting age 4. Obviously it could be a considerably smaller number if thoughts are complex and more time consuming.

Well considering there are 10 to the 40th possible legal chess moves (32 pieces on 64 squares) and that all possible thought has an almost infinitely higher variable count than a chess board, it seems odd that anyone's thought would be identical to a prior thought on planet Earth.

Yes, I think this topic is somewhat vague because, when you drill down into it, the concept of an "original thought" tends to disappear in a welter of detail and different perspectives. So we can say what I said, that you highlighted in red, and still agree with what you say too.

[Belindi]

All thought is orignal.
Its apparent similarity to the thoughts of others is an illusion.

Another way of looking at it is this.
Ask yourself was there a time when there were no human thoughts.
Now there is such a thing as human thought therefore all thoughts, even ones that appear similar to others had to be thought first by someone. QED original thought is possible.
In fact the very existence of thought means that it would be impossible to consider the idea that no thought is original.

That is to confuse original and unique. In an earlier post Sy Borg illustrated the influence on thought and practice of culture by referring to feral child. The origin of particular thoughts and practices is in culture, except perhaps for solitary species.

Otherwise,I agree that subjective uniqueness is what frees mankind to create 'original' work.

You have missed my point about appearance.
If two people think that icecream is nice, they are both the authors of those thoughts, thought they might appear to a third party as unoriginal. But both thoughts come from two sepatate individuals and cannot be the same thought, since they cannot have the same basis. You can test this by mining the thoughts more deeply to find differences. At some point you come across a type of icecream that one of them dislikes whilst the other likes. Thus showing that the apparently "unoriginal" thought is actually two original thoughts.
It is simply the case that all thoughts that I have originate in my brain and are not the thoughts of others.
WE can take words like thought, idea, concept, notion, but unless we specifically define one of these words as an object we cannot deny their origin in the brains of individuals.

I would accept that a notion or concept can be the same as another one, or even an idea, but thoughts are personal and subjective.

And so as with many things, philosophy is semantics.

So lets take an idea as a putatively objective notion that bears comparison "externally" with other such notions.

The thread would then be, can you have an original idea? The answer still has to be yes, since their were no ideas before their were humans, and their is no doubt that many of the ideas we experience have known origins.

PattrernChaser's post, below, covers your point about interpreting terms.
I file your idea with others that endorse the claim that culture is a phenomenon unique to humans.

[Karpel Tunnel]

Can I have an original thought or is it all just a product of my conscious and subconscious learning? Who is to say that what is learnt by one is different or same from another even though they were studying the same thing? Do I understand the world in the same way others do?

If there are any original thoughts, then someone had them. Even if they were products of consciousn and unconscious processes. If there have not been any original thoughts, well, then no one has had one. I think this latter position would be hard to defend. Even the idea that there are no original thoughts was probably not thought before some year in homo sapian history.

I suppose a bit depends on what original means. But in these sense, here with thought, of not being a copy and not already having been thought of by someone else, it seems to me people have had original thoughts.

Have these thoughts been complete ex nihilo creations in no way dependent on previous thoughts and experiences? Well, I would argue no.

But that's an extreme version of original.

Not a useful one. New thoughts even give rise to new things. Of course those new things are still made up of atoms and molecules. But water is not a copy of hydrogen and oxygen. It's new, I would say, qualitatively different.

Just because things are made up of previously existing things, to me, does not eliminate the usefulness of the idea of original ideas.

In a scientific mind, epigenetics leads us to believe that fear and even likes are genetic. Which tells me that, yeah, original thoughts aren't possible. There may be different versions of the same thought but never a new one.

So what was the same thought in the 800s as E=MC2?

Or the same in the 1800's as 'Transgendered women should be allowed to use public toilets for women?'

Or 'the ergosphere'. What thought is this a different version of from the 800s?

[Sculptor1]

All thought is orignal.
Its apparent similarity to the thoughts of others is an illusion.

Another way of looking at it is this.
Ask yourself was there a time when there were no human thoughts.
Now there is such a thing as human thought therefore all thoughts, even ones that appear similar to others had to be thought first by someone. QED original thought is possible.
In fact the very existence of thought means that it would be impossible to consider the idea that no thought is original.

That is to confuse original and unique. In an earlier post Sy Borg illustrated the influence on thought and practice of culture by referring to feral child. The origin of particular thoughts and practices is in culture, except perhaps for solitary species.

Otherwise,I agree that subjective uniqueness is what frees mankind to create 'original' work.

You have missed my point about appearance.
If two people think that icecream is nice, they are both the authors of those thoughts, thought they might appear to a third party as unoriginal. But both thoughts come from two sepatate individuals and cannot be the same thought, since they cannot have the same basis. You can test this by mining the thoughts more deeply to find differences. At some point you come across a type of icecream that one of them dislikes whilst the other likes. Thus showing that the apparently "unoriginal" thought is actually two original thoughts.
It is simply the case that all thoughts that I have originate in my brain and are not the thoughts of others.
WE can take words like thought, idea, concept, notion, but unless we specifically define one of these words as an object we cannot deny their origin in the brains of individuals.

I would accept that a notion or concept can be the same as another one, or even an idea, but thoughts are personal and subjective.

And so as with many things, philosophy is semantics.

So lets take an idea as a putatively objective notion that bears comparison "externally" with other such notions.

The thread would then be, can you have an original idea? The answer still has to be yes, since their were no ideas before their were humans, and their is no doubt that many of the ideas we experience have known origins.

PattrernChaser's post, below, covers your point about interpreting terms.
I file your idea with others that endorse the claim that culture is a phenomenon unique to humans.

Yet my argument is neither semantic, nor is it about any social or cultural aspect of humans.
It's about the nature of thought and where thoughts are generated/originated.

[Terrapin Station]

As a nominalist, unoriginal thought isn't possible.

Presumably because (as you've discussed in various topics previously) a nominalist views the notion of identical-ness as not real; as an abstract concept. No two real things can be literally identical. Therefore no two thoughts (thoughts being activities that a real thing does) can be identical.

Right. Also, you don't literally receive any thoughts from anyone else. For example, education doesn't work by literally receiving thoughts, ideas, etc. from others. All mental content you have is yours and yours alone, where it originated with you.

[Sculptor1]

As a nominalist, unoriginal thought isn't possible.

Presumably because (as you've discussed in various topics previously) a nominalist views the notion of identical-ness as not real; as an abstract concept. No two real things can be literally identical. Therefore no two thoughts (thoughts being activities that a real thing does) can be identical.

Right. Also, you don't literally receive any thoughts from anyone else. For example, education doesn't work by literally receiving thoughts, ideas, etc. from others. All mental content you have is yours and yours alone, where it originated with you.

I think it is worth making a distinction between thoughts which are events that happen in the brain and "ideas" which you can read in a book, or hear on TV etc.
When people say "let me share my thoughts" what they are actually doing is sharing an idea,

[Pattern-chaser]

As a nominalist, unoriginal thought isn't possible.

Presumably because (as you've discussed in various topics previously) a nominalist views the notion of identical-ness as not real; as an abstract concept. No two real things can be literally identical. Therefore no two thoughts (thoughts being activities that a real thing does) can be identical.

Right. Also, you don't literally receive any thoughts from anyone else. For example, education doesn't work by literally receiving thoughts, ideas, etc. from others. All mental content you have is yours and yours alone, where it originated with you.

Yes:

[Cratylus] is famous for capping the doctrine of Heraclitus that you cannot step into the same river twice by adding that you cannot step into the same river once: the river is changing and gone even as a single event of stepping occurs. - link

[Belindi]

That is to confuse original and unique. In an earlier post Sy Borg illustrated the influence on thought and practice of culture by referring to feral child. The origin of particular thoughts and practices is in culture, except perhaps for solitary species.

Otherwise,I agree that subjective uniqueness is what frees mankind to create 'original' work.

You have missed my point about appearance.
If two people think that icecream is nice, they are both the authors of those thoughts, thought they might appear to a third party as unoriginal. But both thoughts come from two sepatate individuals and cannot be the same thought, since they cannot have the same basis. You can test this by mining the thoughts more deeply to find differences. At some point you come across a type of icecream that one of them dislikes whilst the other likes. Thus showing that the apparently "unoriginal" thought is actually two original thoughts.
It is simply the case that all thoughts that I have originate in my brain and are not the thoughts of others.
WE can take words like thought, idea, concept, notion, but unless we specifically define one of these words as an object we cannot deny their origin in the brains of individuals.

I would accept that a notion or concept can be the same as another one, or even an idea, but thoughts are personal and subjective.

And so as with many things, philosophy is semantics.

So lets take an idea as a putatively objective notion that bears comparison "externally" with other such notions.

The thread would then be, can you have an original idea? The answer still has to be yes, since their were no ideas before their were humans, and their is no doubt that many of the ideas we experience have known origins.

PattrernChaser's post, below, covers your point about interpreting terms.
I file your idea with others that endorse the claim that culture is a phenomenon unique to humans.

Yet my argument is neither semantic, nor is it about any social or cultural aspect of humans.
It's about the nature of thought and where thoughts are generated/originated.

Same here!

I do hope you are not a supporter of Free Will!

[Sculptor1]

You have missed my point about appearance.
If two people think that icecream is nice, they are both the authors of those thoughts, thought they might appear to a third party as unoriginal. But both thoughts come from two sepatate individuals and cannot be the same thought, since they cannot have the same basis. You can test this by mining the thoughts more deeply to find differences. At some point you come across a type of icecream that one of them dislikes whilst the other likes. Thus showing that the apparently "unoriginal" thought is actually two original thoughts.
It is simply the case that all thoughts that I have originate in my brain and are not the thoughts of others.
WE can take words like thought, idea, concept, notion, but unless we specifically define one of these words as an object we cannot deny their origin in the brains of individuals.

I would accept that a notion or concept can be the same as another one, or even an idea, but thoughts are personal and subjective.

And so as with many things, philosophy is semantics.

So lets take an idea as a putatively objective notion that bears comparison "externally" with other such notions.

The thread would then be, can you have an original idea? The answer still has to be yes, since their were no ideas before their were humans, and their is no doubt that many of the ideas we experience have known origins.

PattrernChaser's post, below, covers your point about interpreting terms.
I file your idea with others that endorse the claim that culture is a phenomenon unique to humans.

Yet my argument is neither semantic, nor is it about any social or cultural aspect of humans.
It's about the nature of thought and where thoughts are generated/originated.

Same here!

I do hope you are not a supporter of Free Will!

I am a very willful person and I am determined to stay that way.

[Terrapin Station]

As a nominalist, unoriginal thought isn't possible.

Presumably because (as you've discussed in various topics previously) a nominalist views the notion of identical-ness as not real; as an abstract concept. No two real things can be literally identical. Therefore no two thoughts (thoughts being activities that a real thing does) can be identical.

Right. Also, you don't literally receive any thoughts from anyone else. For example, education doesn't work by literally receiving thoughts, ideas, etc. from others. All mental content you have is yours and yours alone, where it originated with you.

I think it is worth making a distinction between thoughts which are events that happen in the brain and "ideas" which you can read in a book, or hear on TV etc.
When people say "let me share my thoughts" what they are actually doing is sharing an idea,

You can't literally share an idea. You share words correlated to your idea. Those words spark mental content in others, but that mental content has to originate in their own mind in response to the words.

[Sculptor1]

Presumably because (as you've discussed in various topics previously) a nominalist views the notion of identical-ness as not real; as an abstract concept. No two real things can be literally identical. Therefore no two thoughts (thoughts being activities that a real thing does) can be identical.

Right. Also, you don't literally receive any thoughts from anyone else. For example, education doesn't work by literally receiving thoughts, ideas, etc. from others. All mental content you have is yours and yours alone, where it originated with you.

I think it is worth making a distinction between thoughts which are events that happen in the brain and "ideas" which you can read in a book, or hear on TV etc.
When people say "let me share my thoughts" what they are actually doing is sharing an idea,

You can't literally share an idea. You share words correlated to your idea. Those words spark mental content in others, but that mental content has to originate in their own mind in response to the words.

That's a shame because the fact that you cannot share your thoughts on this topic makes what you say here unintelligible.
I'll not bother with further responses to you.

THought and Idea are just words.
We simply choose what they mean. Sharing of ideas is commonplace. As it is impossible to share mental processes I am simply advocating calling those thoughts, while things we are capable of sharing are ideas.
I'm surpised you are finding this difficult.

[Belindi]

PattrernChaser's post, below, covers your point about interpreting terms.
I file your idea with others that endorse the claim that culture is a phenomenon unique to humans.

Yet my argument is neither semantic, nor is it about any social or cultural aspect of humans.
It's about the nature of thought and where thoughts are generated/originated.

Same here!

I do hope you are not a supporter of Free Will!

I am a very willful person and I am determined to stay that way.

If you are stubborn and cantankerous then there are causes for the trait as for any trait. You are not the origin of these causes, however much you may, as an honest man, take responsibility for them and pride in them. There are also causes for the popularity in our culture of stubborn independence as a personality trait.

FreeWill is a belief that there is something, popularly called "free will" that, unlike anything else in the universe, is uncaused.

Free Will is about origination, it's not about personalities.

[Sculptor1]

Yet my argument is neither semantic, nor is it about any social or cultural aspect of humans.
It's about the nature of thought and where thoughts are generated/originated.

Same here!

I do hope you are not a supporter of Free Will!

I am a very willful person and I am determined to stay that way.

If you are stubborn and cantankerous then there are causes for the trait as for any trait. You are not the origin of these causes, however much you may, as an honest man, take responsibility for them and pride in them. There are also causes for the popularity in our culture of stubborn independence as a personality trait.

FreeWill is a belief that there is something, popularly called "free will" that, unlike anything else in the universe, is uncaused.

Free Will is about origination, it's not about personalities.

Do you not see the joke?
I'm a determinist.