Mind Generation

[Thales]

Can the mind actually generate anything genuinely new?

 

In my opinion the mind does not so much generate original material, as it does reshuffle existing images and concepts in new ways. Perhaps this explains why it takes so long to 'grow up' and why genuinely innovative ideas are few and far between?

 

Just a thought...

[alt_f13]

Well, considering everything you do is based on something youve experienced before....

 

 

I mean, when's the last time you've thought up a new color?

[Sayonara]

That's not a terribly good answer, given that there are plenty of extremely notable people who are famous for having written of or discussed things before they were built/invented/proven.

[LucidDreamer]

I point to Leonardo Da Vinci as an example of someone who has generated new ideas. If we only reshuffled old ideas we would have run out of inventions a long time ago. We are constantly taking in new stimulus that produces novel ideas. If we could only reorganize the old knowledge we could still have an almost unlimited amount of new ideas because the amount of information is constantly growing. There is still an unlimited amount of new ideas if you have an unlimited amount of ways to reorganize in a system that takes in new information. I still think that we actually create novel things even if we rely on our current information to produce an invention because if some of the information is new then it is still something that has never been concieved of before. Also, remember the many functions of the brain occur at the quantum level so there is an amount of uncertainty in creativity that could provide the source for actual novelty.

[Thales]

Ok my intial examples were poor to say the least (my mind was struggling to generate appropriate examples).

 

Whats to say, however that Leonardo didn't subconsciously observe a falling leaf that gave him the idea for a 'helicopter'. As a collective we accumulate knowledge about the world around us in a rather methodical fashion. True innovation usually stems from the merging of too seemingly unrelated concepts. But the foundations of those concepts have to exist in the mind before a link can be made. So the link is more of an abstract take on the initial information, no new information has really been generated has it?

 

If so then we really are interconnected, in the sense that all our knowledge is based on the accumulation of previous great minds, abstractions. Maybe not profound but interesting no less. Perhaps it is why we cannot think about four dimensional space or as alt put it think of new colours.

[blike]

I see what you're saying Thales, and I've had the same thoughts before. All of your thoughts and ideas are simply modifications to existing ones. For example, if we think of something unique, a giant green spacemonkey for example, it can be broken down into constituents which we have observed. We know the concept of giantism, we've seen the color green, and we know what monkeys are.

 

If you take Leonardo's ideas, they are unique in that the world has never seen that set of concepts strung together in a coherent fashion, but they can be reduced to simpler elements which Leonardo or others had observed before.

[Quixix]

I have tended to believe like you for a long time. New ideas or new concepts are just recombinations of past knowledge. That does not take any merit away from "the creative mind". It is not so easy to recombine pieces of knowledge in our mind and not come up with an aberration.

[YT2095]

but if someone were to take the time to learn Basic Principals (without a purpose necesarily) and a few facts of material behaviour for instance, then apply them with a little imagination, you`ll get a new invention

 

the "trick" is to learn and think about basic principals and know a little about materials too. the rest just comes as a natural course

 

that`s my OPINION only