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Exactly how creative can we be? Creative enough to concieve things we've never even learned of? Or is that learning in itself? How far can the human brain go? How much can we concieve? Is it possible for the brain to create something that has absolutley no relation to anything it has ever encoutered before? If so, how?

My guess is no. But I'm trying to disprove myself as we speak... Anyone else care to add their 2 cents?

Everything we create is in some way based on previously seen phenomena. It's only when we remix it into something resembling a new thing that we get the illusion we're creating something from nothing. If you trace someone's creations carefully enough, you'll eventually be able to connect it to things in their experience.

Creativity is limited to how much a person has experienced.

It's like a blind person trying to concieve of color.

I disagree. What about the invention of the airplane, telephone, etc?

The airplane? PAST EXPERIENCE. People can see birds fly. So they can imagine a flying machine.

Telephone? PAST EXPERIENCE. People can talk. So they can imagine talking through a device.

You're exaggerating. Sure, there was some experience, but it took creativity to invent those things. What about the telescope? I'm sure that someone just stumbled across that. People are creative (and I'm an author, so I have to defend this eh?), and I am so insulted that I think this topic should be closed without further ado.

Yes, it took creativity. I admit that. BUT THERE WAS PAST EXPERIENCE INVOLVED. THAT IS MY POINT.

Um, first you said what Tuxedo ALREADY SAID in different words as to sound like you have a valid, original opinion, but then you simply end up restating his without editing. Nice work. Tuxedo was right, creativity is essentially just changing something you have seen before, I doubt an original thought is really possible.

You see, I prove "my" opinion!

We're creative until we create our own destruction.

Creativity, in art and music especially, is just recombining old thoughts to create something new. After all, there are only seven notes and their half step counterparts when writing music.

I think of creativity as something that we will have for a long time, I don't think it would be possible to use up every single idea or varation of anything. It's like saying "We've made every possible move and had every possible outcome, in a game of chess" and the combinations of that are VERY high. Combine that with EVERYTHING else in life you can do then I think we won't be running out of creative things to do for a long time.

Plus there are billions of different items we can combine or use together in ways we haven't done before.

And about convieving of things that have no relation to what the human brain has seen is probably impossible, since we are all living in a place with MATTER, everything we think of has rules that apply to our world, it's like how string theory says thare are like 11 dimensions, but it is hard for our mind to comprehend those 11 different dimensions in our 3 dimensional +1 time world. To think of something like that would require some special individual to be extremely gifted.

It's an endless loop. Millions of years down the road, IF we do somehow magically meet the end, we will start to use stuff millions of years ago. Like some guy would then come up with somethign a lot like batman, but no one every know bat man was already created millions of years ago. I mean, if most of us have trouble with remembering just a few thousand years worth of normal paced history, imagine a few million or even a few thousand years worth of fast paced pop culture history.

I am an author also, and I use some ideas that people have thrown out (Not a alot, but some) and I also come up with my own ideas. Is it not creative when you come up with the names of everything you're writting about? Is it not creative when you devise the life of the main character in your novel? Is it not creative when you devise a way to ruin everyone's life through certian actions in your novel?

Same goes with Computer Game Makers. Are they not creative? Was Blizzard not creative when they came up with Star Craft? (Sure the Zerg were bassed off of the Aliens of the Alien movies but that's not the point) How about when they made Blackthorn clear back in the day. And what about Rock and Roll Racing? Or even War Craft?

Seriously. When people just sit at home on their ass and do nothing, of course they're going to think that creativity is just made up. I agree with Tux on his statement, but laugh at Snakes reply where he says the Telescope had past experience. Where was the past experience on that? You still have not shown us that.

Interesting... interesting indeed. If you're wondering, im an auther also. But you see, I think there is a limit to WHAT we can think up, not how much. To how much, I say its nearly endless. But I don't think we are capable of thinking past what we can relate to. Like devilisk said, we can't imagine a 5th dimension, our minds simply arent capable of it. The concept, we can grasp, but not the actual thing. And we can only grasp that concept, because we already know of our own dimsension, hence we have something to relate to. Kellimus, I don't doubt creativity, but I do wonder if its possible for a mind to break its own limits in thought. It would cool if we could, but it just doesn't seem physically possible.

Here's another example: Computers

Computers, I believe, started out as calculators. A bunch of yes and no switches designed to calculate numbers. eventually, those yes and no's were formed into complex commands, and then, those were turned into programs.

All of this, thanks to simple mathematics, no?(remember the calculator) But heres an interesting thought. Mathematics is a product of the brain alone. We had the ability, and built farther upon it. Same with science, it was our ability to learn, and we built farther upon, extending the amount of things we can concieve. But have we ever thought up something that wasn't part of any of these? Something that we weren't given, or inspired to think of by an outside force?

Can you think of anything?

The only semblance of 'true' creativity comes accidentally. Often the greatest inventions are the products of accidental discoveries instead of being deliberate, which doesn't so much count for 'true' creativity as it wasn't a product of our minds so much as it was of circumstance.

I disagree, I think it's only limited to the cabablities of the person, not just what they experienced. A blind person could still concieve color. They couldn't name it red or blue or yellow, but they could still concieve it. Do you ever see color while you dream? I have before, and that blind person could too, just as easily.

ADDITION:


That's what I've been thinking this entire time.

Nope. Only the illusion. A mind can grow physically by learning, but it's not like you can add new experiences to it that don't relate to existing existing experience somehow.

Except maybe through narcotics.

Lol, wouldn't that count as an outside force?

I have heard of people taking LSD, and having "religious experiences". So wouldn't it be a possibility that if someone took LSD or Mushrooms, that they could have some crazy idea?

But then that would count as experiencing something... Nevermind what I just said

Well, I beleive that creativity is completely based on parts of our memory. No idea has had complete originality. Being creative means that you can simply pull many aspects that you have witnessed, or have been shown, or read, or simply know from one source or another, and combine many different events together. That is creativity.

Try if you may to picture a world that is in no way like our own, than any significant factor, be it spacial dimentions, emotions, life, ect. found in our current state has no relivance in the other place. Even if you try as hard as you can, you cannot comprehend the way life would be there without bringing some part of your past.

Even if you could comprehend some other dimension or something totally different from our world, I don't think one would be able to express what they actually experienced if it was TOTALLY different from anything anyone has ever experienced or even anything thats there in the universe. There wouldn't be a way to express in words what you actually experienced right?

Creativity, is what we make. How about our own creativity, it came from past expiriances as explained on the first page! And our expriances came from the world around which we see, hear, touch, feel, taste, and interact with. Each one is different from the other. No matter if you were twins, a clone?, a homeless person? everything is your own experiance and that is what you relate to so to be able to create somthing anew on purpose or accedent.

Sorry my spelling is getting off, CURSE YOU SUMMER VACATION!!! Wheres that dictionary¿!