Something Someone Else Thought Of

[clumsysilverdad]

In this world, there is frequently little that is original. Even our sophisticated gadgets are only rearrangements of tech and systems what were previously thought of.

The majority of thoughts in our head are ones that were gifted to us, given to us, or explicitly laid out for us. Occasionally we arrange them in novel ways, but this is rare. We stand on the shoulders of those who came before us to see what we can see. All all our basic services are things others derived and figured out as well. The toilet to evacuate our waste, the piping to bring cold water to quench our thirst, the foods harvested for our table, the carpentry for our roofs, the mechanics and technology for our modern systems.

Yet somehow we are blinded with our own importance, our individualism, as if we could go it alone and our own thoughts are the most integral. We've only arrived at our privileged places through collective actions, yet our discourse is full of immaturity, complaints, and discontent. Our local points of view so exalted and urgent that we even threaten war on those who diverge from or contest our own subjective smattering of thoughts and views.

We stand here as children, barely able to walk and to think. Time to appreciate everything everyone else already thought of, not for our own betterment, but the betterment of all.

@clumsysilverdad

Comments

[accelerator]

An individual can be free and create new realities when in contact with the well-spring of deep base consciousness. I think many people believe what they have been told, that they cannot, maybe even should not, do so and hence fail to recognise when it happens to them spontaneously.

:-) Thanks

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[osef-navi]

I like this topic. It reminds me the story "Ruinas Circulares", in which a man manages to create another man through his dream, to finally realize that he is also the creation of another who dreamed him. We are the projection of others, that's right. But my dilemma is: being a product of evolution, in which we will finally evolve when humans no longer exist ?.

[clumsysilverdad]

Sounds like a good story.

Yes, everything changes, the future is impossible to predict, at best we can just try to fix the obvious deficiencies we see currently.

[digitalfirehose]

This post actually reminds me of an article I read long ago. It reflects on the human capacity to share ideas and to imitate others to learn how to do what they do.

Here is what Thomas Jefferson has to say about ideas (the article is about patents, but that is beside the point here):

It has been pretended by some, (and in England especially,) that inventors have a natural and exclusive right to their inventions, and not merely for their own lives, but inheritable to their heirs. But while it is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all, it would be singular to admit a natural and even an hereditary right to inventors. It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance. By an universal law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men equally and in common, is the property for the moment of him who occupies it, but when he relinquishes the occupation, the property goes with it. Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody. Accordingly, it is a fact, as far as I am informed, that England was, until we copied her, the only country on earth which ever, by a general law, gave a legal right to the exclusive use of an idea. In some other countries it is sometimes done, in a great case, and by a special and personal act, but, generally speaking, other nations have thought that these monopolies produce more embarrassment than advantage to society; and it may be observed that the nations which refuse monopolies of invention, are as fruitful as England in new and useful devices.

That part about how ideas spread like fire is inspiring. That is what your article evokes.

[clumsysilverdad]

wow, very cool... thanks for sharing , Thomas Jefferson, one of the all-time brains!

[ikar59]

This is true in all ambits of creative work. For example it is said that every artist is inspired by others in some capacity, that there are few basic stories to be told and every writer pull from them.

[ssg-community]

Thank you for your continued support of SteemSilverGold

[mariannewest]

So true. We are standing on the shoulders of those who have come before us and we have to be vigilant that the knowledge doesn't get destroyed and forgotten.

[preparedwombat]

Our local points of view so exalted and urgent that we even threaten war on those who diverge from or contest our own subjective smattering of thoughts and views.

Back in my wargaming days, one of our dungeonmasters had an ongoing war between two polytheistic cultures, who fought over whether there were 612 gods or 734 gods.

[clumsysilverdad]

haha, that's about it !

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[edensgarden]

Great post!
Thanks for tasting the eden!

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[seakraken]

Release the Kraken! You got a 10.10% upvote from @seakraken courtesy of @clumsysilverdad!

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You got a 4.28% upvote from @minnowvotes courtesy of @clumsysilverdad!

[edgargonzalez]

aqui estoy apoyando su trabajo,buen pots