@Ripley - I usually have cereal and baby beer in front of the tv, and there's plenty to share. The quote-inside-quote thing has attained unwieldy proportions, so i'll distill: I'm not disputing very much of what you've said, especially not the esoteric bits at whose meaning i can only guess. Really, my main point was just to modify the word "original", extending credit to all those giants and dwarfs, troglodytes and alchemists on whose shoulders we stand. We are both individual and connected. We experience our will and thought as if they were independent, while usually unaware of how much we are constrained and influenced by everything we'd learned up to that point, and by our very biology. (We tend to discount biology, except when using it as an excuse for bad behaviour.) As an 'original' thinker, i'm trying to avoid hubris.
From Postmodernists? Lol. It was the postmodernists who concerned themselves a lot with authenticity and originality, concluding that there is neither, and that everything people think (and say) seems to be just a reorganization of already existing material, ie. of what has already been thought (and said). Sure. As long as it's not clear what exactly "original" should mean, the concept of originality is suspect. * * * It's ludicrous. Here I sit in my little room, I, Brigge, 28 years of age and known to no one. I sit here and am nothing. Nevertheless, this nothing, five flights up on a grey Paris afternoon, begins to think and it has these thoughts: Is it possible, it thinks, that one still hasn't seen or recognised or said anything that's real and important? Is it possible that there have been thousands of years in which to look, to reflect, and to record, and that these thousands of years have been allowed to go by like a school break when one eats a sandwich and an apple? Yes, it's possible. Is it possible that despite inventions and advances, despite culture, religion and worldly wisdom one has remained on the surface of life? Is it possible that even this surface, which at any rate might, after all, have been something, has been covered over with unbelievably boring material so that it has the look of drawing-room furniture in the summer holidays? Yes, it's possible. Is it possible that the whole of world history has been misunderstood? Is it possible that the past is false because it's always its masses that have been spoken about as if one were talking of a convergence of many persons instead of talking about the one person they were gathered round because he was a stranger and was dying? Yes, it's possible. Is it possible that one believed one had to catch up on what had occurred before one was born? Is it possible that each and every person had to remember that he had been produced by all that had gone before and therefore knew it and would not let himself be persuaded by others who knew otherwise? Yes, it's possible. Is it possible that all these people have a totally accurate knowledge of what has never been? Is it possible that realities are as nothing to them; that their life is draining away, connected with nothing, like a clock in an empty room? Yes, it's possible. Is it possible that one can know nothing of the young girls who are nevertheless living? Is it possible that one says 'women', 'children', 'boys' and not suspect for one moment (irrespective of their education) that for a long time these words had no plural but only countless singulars? Yes, it's possible. Is it possible that there are people who say 'God' and think it's something they have in common with everyone?--And take a couple of schoolboys: one of them buys a knife and the other buys an identical one on the same day. And after a week they compare the two knives and it turns out that they look only vaguely similar--so different have they become in different hands. (There you are, says the mother of one of them, if you will go and wear everything out straightaway .) --Ah then: is it possible to believe that one could have a God and not use him? Yes, it's possible. But if all this is possible and if even there's only a glimmer of possibility , then, for pity's sake, surely something needs to be done. The first person to come forward who has had these disquieting thoughts must begin to do what has always been missed; he could be just anyone and it doesn't matter in the least if he's not the most suitable person: there's simply no one else to do it. This young, insignificant foreigner, will have to sit himself down, five flights up and write day and night: yes, he will have to write; that's what it amounts to. From The Notebooks Of Malte Laurids Brigge by Rainer Maria Rilke
I like this. Would this imply that everything already exists and is just yet to be expressed or perceived by humans?
Well, I don't know that we have any unanimously agreed upon theory of why the brain evolved. And will we ever know? The axioms of the brain would need to be defined in terms of a higher system. How can the brain explain itself?
A higher system? How is the relative altitude of systems determined? Systems of what? Who would supply those terms?
I would say so- as many have pointed out in this thread. If subtly influenced- you would need to explain what that influence is. It gets much weirder than just the O.P. Think about this: When are you, You? Seems like an odd question but what it is that defines you as you is something that is in flux. It changes over time. Experiences and influences in your life along with genetic and biological factors all take part in defining... and re-defining you as an individual. While you may be a very specific individual three years ago, today you're not quite the same person you were then. It gets weirder: How many people are You in a given moment. If we took some kind of futuristic "scan" of your brain to draw a complete pattern of "You," how many people alive at that moment would have that same pattern? The same ideology, same ideas, same opinions, same favorites and tastes and dislikes... I do not mean similar to you or like you in most ways- I mean YOU. Their mind is exactly the same as yours in that moment. Probably very few but odds are there would still be a few. A few people out there Just Like You. Same minds. Weird. But don't sweat it- give it a few minutes and that will change... Although maybe now someone else is you. They may not be You in your body, they are you in their own body.
What if a person discovering the wheel felt exactly the same "newness" as the person discovering electricity? We could say it is a new thought, but then perhaps it's really quite familiar. We often look for the next thing to bring about a sense of excitement, but I don't believe it's a new sense of excitement. The same event or thought generally offers a declining value, so we search for new things to try and feel the same thing. I consider many new thoughts to lead to states of mind we are already very familiar with. I see a lot of value in recognizing that I'm using the thought to get myself to a familiar place, not a new place. When I recognize that it's the state of mind that I really value, then I start to discover many more avenues to get there rather than staring at the only pathway I'm familiar with. It also opens up the possibility of moving towards an experience that really is new. I like to consider the "you" as Neverfly describes to be a similiar state, regardless of the details that get you there, for instance the "I just made a new discovery!" state. The odds of there being a few more in the same spot become greatly increased, even if they use different ideas to get there.
