UniversalParadox

since everyone is born into a family, who tells them their beliefs and most people accept them, so i suppose they can be thought of as unoriginal. but what about the people that reject their parents beliefs, isnt that in and of itself another group of people that are all alike? you can also argue that originality no longer exists by the sheer numbers of people in the world, past and present. if originality still does exist, will it 10 thousand years from now?

jpbrooks

By "originality"/"original" (beliefs), do you mean beliefs that are new to all humans or beliefs that are just new to those who rebel against the beliefs that are sanctioned by the social group to which they belong, (but not to humankind as a whole)?

[ March 10, 2002: Message edited by: jpbrooks ]</p>

UniversalParadox

i mean to humankind as a whole.

jpbrooks

Sorry for the late post.

Then I would say that originality (in that sense) is already a(n) historical fact. The wide variety of religions and philosophies that have arisen throughout humankind's existence on this planet attests to that fact.

Danpech

Originality is just a particular network of associations between a given combination of certain facts (facts which are true by definition).

Hidden assumptions (hidden to the thinker who wants to believe that a given association is necessary) are part of some of these associations.

Ongoing Lucidity

If the creator creates something which he believes is original, while totally unaware that someone on the other side of the world has created the exactly the same thing, which is legitimate?

So I guess, at least subjectively, there will always be creativity and hence originality.

As a whole, well, given the unnumerable amount of varibles in the construction of anything can you safely assume that something will be even analogous to something else? Also when you refer to humankind collectively, don't you in effect disgard any notion of independence and origin?