Innovation is Impossible

[Bleid]

I came across an argument the other day by a mathematician. The argument contradicts the idea of there being geniuses or gifted thinkers or even anyone who has original thoughts or ideas for that matter. It posits that those sorts of things do not actually exist and that the world is simply full of "remixing" so to speak.

Consider the argument:
1. People do have knowledge of some ideas.

2. If someone has knowledge of some idea, then they must have had an experience related to that idea.

3. If someone has had an experience related to some idea, then the idea must have existed in some way prior to their knowledge of it.

4. If ideas exist in some way prior to anyone's knowledge of them, then there is no such thing as someone with new ideas.
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5. Therefore, there is no such thing as an innovator (someone with new ideas).

This argument holds the following valid logical form:


1. A
2. A ⇒ B
3. B ⇒ C
4. C ⇒ D
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5. Therefore, D

Given that the argument has valid logical form (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modus_ponens), this means that the reasoning it holds is correct and has no flaws (which, provably, it does not have any reasoning flaws).

However, this does not leave us with no defense. We can still of course take issue with the truth of one or more of the premises and say that the argument is unsound (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundness) and therefore leads us to an incorrect conclusion.

I thought I would share this argument with you all and see if anyone agreed with the argument or if anyone disagreed with it and could explain the flawed premise(s) of the argument.

[Uniquemind]

The flaw in that logic lies in the meaning of step 3, in terms of "someone with new ideas".


Murphy's law states that all things that can happen will happen given enough time.

Idea's or possibilities are dormant until someone executes them, but someone is responsible for that conscious observation and execution of their thoughts.

[Goatzbro]

Step 3 is fallacious because just because some idea exists before, doesn't mean that it's the exact same idea once someone has considered it fully.

[Microcosm]

Innovation is our discovery of the existence of a concept or how we can manipulate it in a new and intuitive way. The "forms(as in the platonic forms of the ideas)" are not new themselves(they've always been in existence), but rather the knowledge of them which is gained by us is new. In other words, the idea is new.

Idea - a thought or suggestion as to a possible course of action.

Thoughts are only made by people's minds. An "idea" is merely our interpretation/discovery/manipulative technique of a natural form.

[northy]

Innovation is our discovery of the existence of a concept or how we can manipulate it in a new and intuitive way. The "forms(as in the platonic forms of the ideas)" are not new themselves(they've always been in existence), but rather the knowledge of them which is gained by us is new. In other words, the idea is new.

Idea - a thought or suggestion as to a possible course of action.

Thoughts are only made by people's minds. An "idea" is merely our interpretation/discovery/manipulative technique of a natural form.

Exactly what I was going to say.

[Uniquemind]

Innovation is our discovery of the existence of a concept or how we can manipulate it in a new and intuitive way. The "forms(as in the platonic forms of the ideas)" are not new themselves(they've always been in existence), but rather the knowledge of them which is gained by us is new. In other words, the idea is new.

Idea - a thought or suggestion as to a possible course of action.

Thoughts are only made by people's minds. An "idea" is merely our interpretation/discovery/manipulative technique of a natural form.

The realm of magic though....that's an iffy one. Now this thread has got me thinking about it again in terms of innovation.

But only because "magick" isn't scientifically testable and seems to be invested in a certain level of consciousness.

I digress I'm getting sidetracked.

[LoveDat]

i agree! A new idea is always just a combination of ideas that have already existed before.
The human mind can't make up anything that is entirely new it can only make new combinations.
Like a mermaid is just a combination of a woman and a fish

[Bleid]

i agree! A new idea is always just a combination of ideas that have already existed before.
The human mind can't make up anything that is entirely new it can only make new combinations.
Like a mermaid is just a combination of a woman and a fish

Have you heard of David Hume by any chance? He would agree especially with the last line you have.

He was an empiricist and would argue that even things that do not necessarily exist, but that we can know of conceptually are still the result of experience. He called these things "relations of ideas."

The most famous example he was challenged with was that of a golden mountain, to which he responded,

"We know of gold from experience and we know of mountains from experience, and hence through a relation of ideas, we can come to know of a golden mountain from the combination of the two experiences and nothing more."

David Hume's philosophy might lead him to agree with the argument in the OP, as well.

[Judean Zealot]

David Hume's philosophy might lead him to agree with the argument in the OP, as well.

I've read Hume. He is pretty explicit in his agreement with the OP. However, Hume's position itself is one which I don't agree with, considering that we do, in fact, generate in our intellects purely abstract concepts, such as irrational and negative numbers, and we use them to express actual states of existence. And indeed, Hume will reject much of contemporary mathematics on this ground. This by no means disproves Hume, but raises considerable doubt on the respectability of his notions, especially considering the fact that we do quite clearly see a relation between the relationship of ideas and empirical reality.

In addition, and even more seriously, the Humean identification of the mind as just another property of the body (as opposed to a dualist approach) runs directly contrary to Leibniz's famous rule (which the empiricist school of thought has largely embraced) that "two things are the same if, and only if, they have all of the same properties at the same time".

Considering as the mind as a function of thought is spatially indivisible (think: Cogita ergo sum), while the body is by it's very nature divisible, clearly the intellect is of a separate substance than the body. Although the body may or may not influence the workings of the minds, at the very least the mind contains in it the capacity of cogita irrespective of empirical (sensory) experience.
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I would, however, agree with the OP in the sense that Rainbow Dash did: that the forms are immutable and unchangeable. All we can do is come to a proper understanding of a preexisting idea, which was and will retain it's truth value irrespective of the attention it does or doesn’t receive.