"Originality does not consist in saying what no one has ever said before but in saying exactly what you think yourself"
The author contends that to be original; it is sufficient to express your thoughts exactly and accurately: one need not necessarily say something for the first time ever in order to claim originality. How does one define originality? Originality is a matter of perception: what may seem original from an individual perpective may or may not seem original from a global perpective.
Surely, if one's thoughts are one's own; born independently in the recesses of one's mind, absolutely pure and devoid of everyone else's influence, they are original indeed. For example, the telegraph was invented independently by Bose and Marconi. Their thoughts and were original and novel. Thus, simply expressing what you think accurately and honestly is criteria enough for originality.
However, if one arrives at a conclusion by extrapolating the existing thought processes, the degree of originality is debatable. Surely, most people will not accept such thoughts as truly original unless they have a certain degree of novelty and unobvious insight in them.
But to be truly and universally original, one has to definitly say what no one else has said before. The key word here is "universally": Thoughts and conclusions one derives independently are original only from and individual perspective: for someone already fimiliar with those thoughts, the originality is lost; regardless of the fact that the thinker was ignorant. For example, the Indian Mathematician Ramanujam arrived at numerous theorems and proofs indepently while in India. Unfortunately, most of his work had already been done by famous mathematicians like Euler, Poincare, etc. Ramanujam did not know this because of the poor quality of education he recieved; and when he discovered it on his arrival at Cambridge, was extremely depressesed. Ramanujam's ideas were absolutely original; but only from his individual and personal perspective. As far as the world was concerned, his ideas were ancient history.
Surely, if one's thoughts are one's own; born independently in the recesses of one's mind, absolutely pure and devoid of everyone else's influence, they are original indeed. For example, the telegraph was invented independently by Bose and Marconi. Their thoughts and were original and novel. Thus, simply expressing what you think accurately and honestly is criteria enough for originality.
However, if one arrives at a conclusion by extrapolating the existing thought processes, the degree of originality is debatable. Surely, most people will not accept such thoughts as truly original unless they have a certain degree of novelty and unobvious insight in them.
But to be truly and universally original, one has to definitly say what no one else has said before. The key word here is "universally": Thoughts and conclusions one derives independently are original only from and individual perspective: for someone already fimiliar with those thoughts, the originality is lost; regardless of the fact that the thinker was ignorant. For example, the Indian Mathematician Ramanujam arrived at numerous theorems and proofs indepently while in India. Unfortunately, most of his work had already been done by famous mathematicians like Euler, Poincare, etc. Ramanujam did not know this because of the poor quality of education he recieved; and when he discovered it on his arrival at Cambridge, was extremely depressesed. Ramanujam's ideas were absolutely original; but only from his individual and personal perspective. As far as the world was concerned, his ideas were ancient history.
posted by Shankar @ 10:33 PM
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