where do ideas come from?

Ideas come from the overbrain. It drops them into the lower brains as needed.

No, no, that's the intestines. Very similar, but still, slightly different.

I try not to worry about the origins of things. If certain phenomena exists, it's more appropriate to see how it functions now-- that is, it is more appropriate (practical!) to investigate the consequences of its existence than to speculate about its origins. Otherwise we would be paralyzed.

I think it is both interesting and important for us to understand as best we can how our brains function.

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OK. I respectfully disagree with your disagreement.

On the grounds that knowing the brain has little do with Where Ideas Come From, in reality. In real reality, where there are not unicorns as such, but horses and horns. What purpose could answering this question serve? I ask honestly.

Ideas are an emergent phenomenon, like consciousness itself. If we wish to play ring around the rosies, asking this question is pure gold. Otherwise, a perhaps more practical question is: We have ideas; what are the consequences of that fundamentally sound... fact?





(The paralysis I mention, by the way, is one of circuitous philosophy.)

My ideas are usually mistakes I try t fix.

Plato strove to explain this very concept, among others, in his Theory of Forms.

Without getting too detailed, a Form is an abstract quality or property that transcends space and time. For example, if you take a basketball and think only of its roundness, you are observing the Form of Roundness. The Form is separate from the basketball, and all round objects participate or copy the Form of Roundness. You can likewise say this about the ball's color or size.

The world in which we live is basically a shadow of the world of Forms. A great way to explain this is to visualize a cave with a fire inside it. As people and objects move around the fire, their shadows are cast on the cave wall. Our world is the cave wall, with material objects being crude shadows of the Forms, which are what is truly real.

Because we all participate in these Forms, we are aware of all objects, whether or not we think of them consciously. This is why ancient civilizations were able to independently develop techniques for building homes and structures with fairly similar designs. If you look at a window built by multiple ancient civilizations that were isolated from each other, they all look pretty much the same. Another example is how regardless of style or design, all of us can recognize a chair or a table. Essentially, no idea is original or really ours. We simply participate in a higher, more perfect world of Forms.

gorgias of leontini said:

On the grounds that knowing the brain has little do with Where Ideas Come From, in reality.

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Knowing the brain isn't necessarily the object of knowing where ideas come from, or vice versa.

People are willing to pay handsomely to learn how to produce more ideas. Physician and author Edward De Bono for instance, has sold millions of books and games for just this purpose. Writing coaches such as Holly Lisle and Ken Rand sell writing e-books helping authors do the same thing. The mass entertainment and advertising industries are voracious consumers of fresh ideas. Many staff writers would sell their souls to have a fire-hydrant of fresh ideas outside their office (if their souls weren't already owned by Sony etc... ) In information and knowledge economies, many 'serious' businesses are now getting serious about nurturing new ideas too. For instance, consultancies such as 'Think, Play, Do' help businesses learn how to innovate.

While philosophical considerations don't always offer practical answers to practical questions, sometimes they do. For instance, my earlier answer included necessity, idle curiosity, knowledge, myth, rigour and perversity. All of these engender exercises you can do to generate ideas, or test or improve their quality.

...Plato was brilliant.
If ever a diety walked the Earth it was he.

Agreed.

AMCrenshaw said:

Assuming for a second that no god exists, is there ownership over ideas? Can we call Plato brilliant if his work isn't essentially original? The whole business of forms is fine, for example, but how do ideas about something kinda arbitrary (like morality) form?

AMC

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Good question. Plato addresses the origin of abstract ideas, and it is pretty much what you'd expect. There is a form of Morality, a form of Good, a form of Evil, etc. The key concept though, is that the forms Plato is talking about exist entirely independent of human thought or understanding. In other words, when we come up with an "idea", our minds are simply recognizing and participating in a given form; however, in the absence of this recognition, the form still exists.

It's like playing peek-a-boo with a baby. The baby doesn't realize (not early on, anyway) that when you pull the blanket over your face, you're still back there. As far as he's concerned, you no longer exist. That's our mistaken belief about ideas according to Plato. We think that when we are not developing ideas, they don't exist when in reality, they are just behind the blanket.

I don't think Plato would have called his work original or brilliant. I think if he truly subscribed to his on theories, he would want people to realize that he was just participating in whatever form related to his "discovery". Most people who have come up with groundbreaking theories or ideas have been quick to point out that all they did was stumble upon something that already existed. I'm not arguing that Plato is correct, but most brilliant people seem to agree that whatever idea you are searching for is already out there--you just have to trip over it.

AMCrenshaw said:

where do ideas come from

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My neuropsychology is rusty, so bear with me. The cortex is organised into areas that process different types of information: visual, auditory, tactile for example. There are areas around these that perform secondary processing: recognising letters, identifying pitch etc. There are then areas where these overlap - where processed information in various different forms comes together. This is where an idea comes from. It's a function of higher level processing.

If you asked me what an idea is, I would say it was a verbalised reaction to an internal state. Example: internal state is hunger. Idea is where's the fridge?

That's how it works for my cat, anyhow.

There is no originality?

This guy is my favorite. Check out friends in Sydney (a "soiree") , 1991 PART 2

http://www.ugkrishnamurti.org/ug/ug_video/index.html

UG, who claims his initials stand for "useless guy" says that everything we know is based on arbitrary terms. Our parents tell us the sky is blue, then we learn from scientists that the sky is blue because of light reflecting off oxygen molecules in the atmosphere and so on. Skip to @ the 9:00 point for this part.

Also, what do I want? @ 5:30 if you want to know where ideas come from this guy may help you, even though he claims he cannot.

I'm surprised that no one has stated that stimuli are what create ideas.

Sure, ideas come from memory and the combination of memory, imagination, etc., but where did all of this memory-information come from to begin with? Things you've seen or heard or smelled or experienced - external stimulus. Sure, eventually(the older you get the more material you have to work with) you start using only your memories and thoughts to come up with new ideas, but these are all building blocks on the foundation of when you experienced them.

The nine daughters of Apollo bring them.