Deep thought: is there such a thing as a completely new idea?

[neylitalo]

Discuss: It is not possible for someone to come up with a completely new idea, without expanding and/or combining ideas that he has been previously exposed to.

 

Go!

 

Edit: After reading this, I see how there could be confusion. I'm trying to start a debate/discussion about the validity/invalidity of this statement. If you think this is wrong, say so. If you agree with me, please say so. But please provide your reasons - we want to be able to understand why you think so!

[Crew-Portal]

Im sorry I dont understand/. Do you mean you want up to come up with ideas and then people expand on the previous posts? if so heres mine:

 

I Believe that there should be coding compatable in diffrent languages (Only the main ones of course). like English, French, Spanish, and Russian, with code that people can edit to translate functions into thier own language.

[hcdarkmage]

I Believe that there should be coding compatable in diffrent languages

 

I think that is the point being made.  Your idea isn't really a NEW idea, but one that was brought into being because you get frustrated with the current coding language.

 

It's like having 10 people look at the same problem.  At least 2 of them will have the same idea on how to solve the problem, given certain parameters.  Look at the "inventions" of the time.  They are not NEW ideas, just different ways of solving the problem.

[AndyB]

Reductio ad absurdum - there would never have been a first idea.

 

"I have stood on the shoulders of giants .... "

 

Take your pick.

[Daniel0]

Hehe... it's like the chicken and the egg.

[Daniel0]

Hmm... if this is true, then there is no such thing as "innovation" either.

[The Little Guy]

by Idea do you mean on the web or anywhere?

 

On the web, I think we are limited to the number of "NEW" ideas made. I do believe that new ideas can come out, but it will be a combination of old ideas, only to make those ideas better.

 

Inventions in the world, are being made every day. Most of the inventions are based of older inventions, such as the "Album -> Eight Track -> Tape -> CD player -> Mp3 player", but every year there are very few "band new" never before though of ideas.

 

(I hope this relates to the question.)

[GingerRobot]

Hmm, interesting question. I guess the the unfortunate answer is it depends how far you take things. Since people learn by the experiences they have, I guess you could argue that any thoughts/ideas they have are based on their previous experiences. That said, i would hope there are at least some complete innovations - otherwise we live in a bit of a boring world!

 

It's difficult to think of an example of one though. Even when you consider great scientific discoveries, there's usually some influence from another scientist at some point.

[The Little Guy]

What about the invention of the wheel, or fire? well... actually fire wasn't "Invented" it was found, so I guess I mean "How to make a fire".

[neylitalo]

Hmm... if this is true, then there is no such thing as "innovation" either.

 

Oh, I don't know. I have a different definition of "innovation" - I would think that using existing technologies in previously unthought-of ways would count as innovation, as would combining existing ideas to arrive at a previously unvisited conclusion.

 

What about the invention of the wheel

 

That was the first time I had started to think that maybe "original thought" was possible, and that I was incorrect - thank you. But, I think the wheel was designed and created after they used logs as rollers underneath heavy objects. And then I wondered how they got the idea to use the logs as rollers, and I couldn't think of anything, except that maybe they saw a log rolling down a hill and got the idea from that.

 

Reductio ad absurdum - there would never have been a first idea.

 

That's the part that bothers me. I haven't quite figured out how I should deal with that.

 

P.S.: Just in case you're wondering, this came up in a conversation between my sister and I, and I was interested in getting some more opinions. Thank you all for contributing, and feel free to add more.

[AndyB]

Reductio ad absurdum - there would never have been a first idea.

 

That's the part that bothers me. I haven't quite figured out how I should deal with that.

 

The Big Bang might be the best type of explanation for that

[hcdarkmage]

This also begs to question the validity of the computer.  It isn't a new idea, but it wasn't exactly a new idea when the first was made.  It's life probably started like: abacus -> calculator -> computer -> laptop -> pda.

 

But then wouldn't that make the abacus a new idea in it's time?

 

My brain hurts . . .

[GingerRobot]

Not really. An abacus was develeped to help people count. Previously, people may have used some form of counters.

 

Also, couldn't you argue that there never was 'a first idea', since 'the second idea' could be based on some element of chance? Taking neylitalo's example of the wheel - by chance people saw a log rolling down a hill, and this was the basis for using logs to help transport things.

[bilis_money]

Yes it is true you need the previous idea (experience) before you get the new idea.

 

It's just like juggling the puzzle.

 

[The Little Guy]

What about Coca~Cola? That was created by accident, it originally was made to remove rust... or something along those lines.

[dbo]

I heard a quote once that I think applies here. It went something like this: "Stealing one persons work is called plagiarism, stealing a bunch of peoples work is called research."

[Crew-Portal]

Or the Internet. It was originally created in 1960 by sientists to transmit data to one another. It only came with a primitive type of HTML that only allowed text to be arial,black and a choice of being bold/Underline/Italizized and changing the font size. Now look where we came 25+ Internet languages. Some free some not. Databases, Images, PHP(The Best), And Google! lol

[Zane]

nah...it was definitely Al Gore who invented it.  I heard it on TV

[roopurt18]

New ideas do occur but for the most part everything we have is just an extension of what already existed.

 

Here are some things I consider to be new ideas:

zero (or nothing), [non-]existence of powerful god(s), calculus, certain advancements in physics (theory of relativity,  quantum mechanics, etc)

 

Those are all items that to some extent were built on previous concepts, but required radically new thinking to carry the concept further.

 

Things like computers, various machines that fly, are all innovations of previous technology, so aren't really new ideas.  They're just more efficient methods of completing tasks that are thousands of years old.

 

Also, IMO, human beings are fairly limited in their capacity for thought in that we all draw on the same resources for our thought process.  Thus, any time one human has had an idea or innovation, there is a good chance someone else has thought of it before.

Two classic examples:

The European development of calculus - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculus#Development

Steam Power - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolipile

[dsaba]

Discuss: It is not possible for someone to come up with a completely new idea, without expanding and/or combining ideas that he has been previously exposed to.

 

Of course! The ideas that many people like to expand on came into existence somehow. Someone was the first to mention them. New ideas and solving problems with new ideas is one of the fundamentals of hacking/programming anyways. Sure, its possible. Because its possible doesn't mean its easy as it was in earlier years, or it is easy at all. In caveman's time, I'm sure it was quite easy to come up with "new" ideas. Programming is about innovation, it would cease to exist and come to a halt of nothing new could be generated.