ehpolitical

Now you're breaking off into something else that fascinates me... symbolism as a highly efficient method of communication. If you test yourself, you'll find it takes less time for your brain to process symbols than spoken words... and there's a very short amount of time in there where your brain understands what it's looking at without the need of any other language other than symbolism.

Lol, ok, forget I was here.

I've had a hard enough time trying to think an original thought without redefining what a thought even is, so its dictionary definition is fine for this purpose.

I can't fathom how we wouldn't be aware if some thought suddenly occurred to us that was entirely foreign to everything familiar to us in this world.

Sorry, I don't understand what you mean that it would be easier to quantity if in the form of a statement or opinion... original is original.

A 100% original composition, if you could invent entirely new notes. I know it seems impossible, but it can't be when every single thought had to have been thought for a first time by someone.

Oops, I thought you were serious, sorry :)

No worries... I get a few flashes of almost genius, interspersed with many of remarkable stupidity... at least you only need to wake up (or get some sleep).

I keep going back to the fact that every thought had to have been thought a first time by someone, so that it has to be possible to have an original thought. Could it be then that maybe we've just finally run out of humanly conceivable ideas?

The first to explore the thought was Plato, approx 2500 years ago. Try again :)

100% original... oceans and oranges aren't original.

Wouldn't matter if someone else had the same thought, as long as you thought it entirely on your own.

I'd say it's because we're ridiculously spoiled (Canadian here).

Just let it happen naturally, as you're getting to know each other. If you're truly the sane one, they'll eventually see that you're sane and explaining your family history won't be as daunting anymore.

Very interesting, I can see how that could become like a thorn in the brain. But I can also imagine how an original thought might require an unusual and/or surprising set of circumstances that might cause you to forget Tim Allen's theory just long enough for the thought to occur to you independently... like one of those aha or eureka moments. Also, I'm not sure about the connection you make here to a deity... there are plenty of things firmly planted in our memories, doesn't mean everyone and everything that planted them are gods.

I'm not sure about the relationship between thought and the materials around us, but I do know that every single thought had to have been thought a first time by someone.