Originality

How original do you really think you are? The world is populated by more than 6.5 billion people today. In the history of humanity there has been countless more. We are 99% similar to each human being we encounter on the streets, indeed, we are 99% similar to every human being that is alive today and even more similar to our immediate relatives. As far as genetics go it may be impossible to get any closer to "exactness" than an identical twin. Though they may be "genetically identical" they still retain individuality in that their experiences alter their values and perceptions on which they operate. It seems almost paradoxical that human beings feel compelled to assert a certain amount of uniqueness yet at the same time desire similarities enough to form groups.

Originality is definitely seen as a virtue to an extent. The kind of originality that leads to deviant behaviors such as you'll find in murderers, rascals, and the like are obviously shunned by most. Like everything the human mind contemplates originality is based on some value scale. Robert Jarvik, the guy that created the artificial heart, certainly receives praise for his originality in developing new technologies that help people who once had no hope. Of course what would you expect from someone married to the supposed smartest woman in the world.

There comes a problem with originality and discovery. So many people inhabiting this world today now have access to a wealth of knowledge that is readily available at the click of a mouse. While progress continues to be made on the human front less people in the world have to concern themselves about mere survival which allows more people to kick back, relax, and contemplate things. These curious pursuits lead to all sorts of great and obscure ideas. The eventual consequence of 6.5 billion people who are 99% similar and retain the ability to simply sit around thinking about things as they choose has led to a lot of similar thought.

Though we continue to think that we are each very unique, often it is instilled in us as children, it still stands to reason that we are overwhelmingly more similar than we are different. The implication in that is that if the first person to discover the wheel hadn't been whoever it was then it surely would have been discovered by someone else. The problem of originality then isn't merely having "original" ideas but being the first to broadcast them. If you don't make the discovery someone else eventually will! I heard that Alexander Graham Bell, the dude that is credited with inventing the telephone, registered his patent on the telephone mere minutes before someone else, who had supposedly developed a "better" version, attempted to register a patent for it. How true the story is I don't know but it would serve it's purpose even as an allegory.

I can't imagine there are many people, at least in the developed world, who haven't stumbled upon a situation where they believed they had discovered something original only to find that someone else had breakfasted or even marketed the discovery before they had. I remember this commercial for a patenting company that shows a rather irritated man struggling with the thought of someone else cashing in on "his idea". The poor man is left litost grumbling "I shoulda gotta patent". In my personal experience I can recall stumbling across a book who's author seemed to pull the thoughts I had directly from my brain. I was awed to find ideas I thought were greatly original compiled in a book (often using the same words I would have used) written by a man whom I had previously never heard of and who could have passed as an intellectual twin. Though I felt I lost some of my originality I must admit there comes a certain satisfaction in the validation of ideas in this manner. Even the creators of South Park, the cartoon that has parodied nearly everything in contemporary history, reveal the reality of originality in the cartoon business by declaring that "The Simpsons" have already done it in one of their sketches.

Another problem that is a consequence of like minded selfish creatures spending time discovering things is plaigerism. Knowingly copying someone else's core ideas and passing them off as your own is more or less plaigerism. Yet how can one tell if the intent was there. In law all that separates a criminal from a fool is intent. Plaigerism is a big deal to a lot of people and researchers have spent time developing software to root out plaigerism. See link below:

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/41458/title/Study_finds_lots_of_apparent_plagiarism

But how can one be truely certain that one idea has not simply been copied from another. Comedians get into battle over stolen material all the time.

Carlos Mencia is called out by Joe Rogan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M42BflUZry8

Someone claims that Dane Cook stole Demetri Martin's joke:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwCiyR4-YLc

With so many comedians it is certain that they will eventually stuble upon similar lines of comedy. It is a fact of our human nature and shared experiences. One can never be sure of true plaigerism (unless it is confessed by the defendant). The only test would be to analyse the liklihood of each case, thereby developing some rough idea of the probability the case wasn't simply coincidence. Complexity of ideas is key.

Developing originality simply has to do with the amount of complexity inherent in an idea. The more complex a discovery is generally the less people will stumble upon the idea as soon. Statistically, if this universe we inhabit goes on forever and human beings are able to continue as a species all discoveries that can be made will be made. A person who is looking to develop their originality should invest some time into discoveries that are more complex in nature. Einstein, a symbol of superior intellect, developed original theories in physics, most notably his theory of "general relativity" yet it is certain that given enough time some other physicist/mathematician would have come along and made the discovery had he not.