New ideas are nothing more than weird combinations of old ideas
There is no such thing in this world whose origin cannot be traced back. Everything has a previous version from which it originates. Like everything else in this world, our ideas too have a history, every new idea has a previous version from which it emerges. All new ideas come from old ideas — old ideas combine together and bring about new ideas. It’s all about unique and curious combinations of old ideas — then this curious combination becomes what we call a new idea. This is what ideators do to come up with an innovative idea, and this is in fact a great way to generate unique ideas.
So, there are two things that are responsible for the new ideas:
- Old ideas
- That unique way those old ideas are combined together
Old ideas: To come up with a new idea about anything, you must have old ideas about that thing. Everything comes from a frame of reference, without a frame of reference you cannot think about anything. This simply translates to the fact that nothing comes from nothing. Without your previous thoughts or experiences about a thing, you cannot come up with a new thought about that thing. In other words, if you have nothing in your mind about a subject, you can create nothing. We cannot think of anything without recalling the parts of the thoughts that come from memories of past events or experiences. Nothing comes all of a sudden, everything has a base from which it is built. All new ideas come from old ideas. It’s about the layering of ideas, layers over layers of ideas bring the idea of something new and exciting. Ideas have a history, if you don’t have any previous (old) idea you cannot come up with the next (next) idea. Or put it another way, ideas have a genealogy, i.e. old ideas modify and give birth to new ideas — the brain works from precedent. Creativity relies on memory, new ideas emerge from memories of the old ideas. We take the old ideas and mold them together into some new shape. So, creative ideas evolve from existing memories and impressions.
📖 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝘂𝗹𝗹 𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗹𝗲 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝘁: New ideas are nothing more than weird combinations of old ideas
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