Your radical ideas about X have already occurred to others.
 

In reading various texts on politics, philosophy and religion, I've come across many ideas that I had thought up myself at some point. But last night, while reading The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money by Keynes, I realised that perhaps everything I had ever dreamt about or thought about or even considered had been written up, expanded on, debunked, defended and finalized years before I was even born. Is it still possible to have an original idea when three trillion people have come before you and seen the same things you've seen, been the same places and thought the same thoughts? Whats the point in talking about philosophy and politics unless you can dedicate your life to expanding the field of knowledge? Why spend hours making up your own political theories when, no matter what, someone has already tried it and given up or disproved it beyond a shadow of a doubt?

Maybe I should just stick to writing java and leave the metaphysics to the professionals.:crazy:

Sure, you can still have an original idea or two, maybe not in something in politics or philosophy, but in other ways! Look at the guy who "invented" the pet rock. People for centuries used rocks as building materials or weapons. He on the other hand, saw the rock's true potential as a friendly, low upkeep pet and made millions.

man ive thought of that before as well, like the fact, well not fact, but that every musical note has been written into a song already, theres none that no one has ever played before, freaks me out sometimes.

There are no new ideas.

Of course, that's been said before..... ;)

thus the phrase,
"Nothing new under the Sun"

I think I have one, but I've just got to prove it,
and even then it's based on other ideas.

Two things I have noticed...

Whenever you find something you enjoy doing (hobby) someone will think you are crazy for doing it

No matter how far you are "into" your hobby, there will always be some people who take your hobby it a bit too far, and THOSE people are scary.

new concepts? new technologies? they all seem like it... look at some of the inventions out there...it's the true epiphanies and discoveries that change the world. Nobel's dynamite, Watson & Crick DNA strand, Ford not the automobile but the process of manufacturing. even robotics... there's some nice antique automotons out there...

not really... most things are just expanded on old things... computers ... calculators... adding machine... abacus.

thats what makes the arts so special, they can be innovative

Not do most people think unoriginal thoughts and do unoriginal things, but they get together and have unoriginal conversations about the same unoriginal topics, over and over and over again...

Even Isaac Newton said, "If I have seen far, it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants," meaning all the scientists who came before him.

What the pessimists above are missing out on is the possibility for synthesis: maybe you're the first guy to think to apply an old idea to a new situation, and it succeeds brilliantly. Or, neither of two existing ideas will solve a problem, but you find a way to combine the best of both.

Even some of the examples stated before weren't completely original ideas: Watson and Crick couldn't have discovered the formation of DNA without the photographs of Rosalind Franklin, and Ford wouldn't have come up with assembly line manufacturing without Eli Whitney's system of interchangeable parts. Even these people probably had others that came before them. But they all developed it further, and so are all great in some way.

not so fast. i think it was picasso that said "a good artist copies. a great artist steals" in my graphic design classes, it's ALL about 'stealing' ideas and making other peoples work into your own. welcome to postmodernism.

yeah, that's why ideas themselves aren't worth anything.
putting them into action in particular moments can have great value.

"Originality is the art of concealing your source." ~ Thomas Edison

Follow Mr. Edison's advice well, grasshopper, and you shall do well :thumbsup:

Thats what made those innovators so special and famous. If you found a truly orginal and plausible theory or concept, you might go down in the history books too.