Is anything original

[comperr]

Almost everything is imitation. The idea of The Persian Letters was taken from The Turkish Spy. Boiardo imitated Pulci, Ariosto imitated Boiardo. The most original writers borrowed from one another.

[OneArrow]

We all draw our inspiration from somewhere, whether we like it or not. As far as I can see, everything is always based upon something else that we know or experience, it's how we apply it (accidentally or otherwise) that makes any sort of difference.

I think this gets to the heart of hacking itself - taking what we know and doing something crazy with it that no one has bothered to try yet.

[heyheyhack]

i agree we can take something and call it our own, or new, but really there is something that has influenced us to do something, in whatever we do. even us hackers, technology may be changing but we get our influence from previous hackers

[OneArrow]

Almost everything is imitation. The idea of The Persian Letters was taken from The Turkish Spy. Boiardo imitated Pulci, Ariosto imitated Boiardo. The most original writers borrowed from one another.

See what I did there? :]

[sokeman]

if you think that your being original enuff times then you will be original. But how do you know your being original???

[nosidius]

for something to be original, it must be original in the eyes of those who see it........... so we can say that as long as others perceive it to be original, it is


perception, perception, perception

[Bulldoze]

The idea of The Persian Letters was taken from The Turkish Spy. Boiardo imitated Pulci, Ariosto imitated Boiardo. The most original writers borrowed from one another.

Where was the Idea of The Turkish Spy taken from? Whom did pulci imitate and whom did Boiardo? There would be no end to this chain unless someone/something is original.

Almost everything is imitation.

We can use this sentence in a Reductio ad absurdum to prove otherwise . if that was the case we would have an infinite continuum(vacuous), So we have to end the chain somewhere and that requires a source that is not imitation/does not imitate. Hence those sources are original.

[nosidius]

wouldn't the first always be original in what it is? it's still a new combination of ideas..........