RROCKMAN

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
10,907
Even if we define unique as something truly original with out any sort of frame of reference there had to have been unique ideas.

This is like saying Cloud isn't a very unique RPG protagonist, when at the time he was made he damn well jet set the trend that makes him not so unique in the first place.
 

Deleted member 49482

User requested account closure
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Nov 8, 2018
3,302
I'm thinking about something truly unique right now.

I can't explain it to you though because you have no frame of reference for it within your tangible reality. I'm thinking of it though, so you'll just have to trust me.
 

Feep

Lead Designer, Iridium Studios
Verified
Oct 25, 2017
4,644
This is reductive. "Uniqueness" is a gradient; I could easily say all objects are just things made of quarks and so you can't make any really unique objects, it's all just quarks, how lame.

All objects and ideas are, to some extent, unique. Are they unique enough to meet your arbitrary definition? Maybe not. But that's ill-defined.
 

Aaronrules380

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
22,632
I mean what you're saying is essentially meaningless. Especially since by your definition, anything that can be put into words or even pictures is disqualified (since if I have a way to explain it, I must be utilizing existing concepts) so the moment somebody is able to communicate something by your definition the thing fails. Basically all you're saying is that people need language to communicate concepts, which is irrelevant. Like let's say you're even just talking about imagining a creature. The fact that I can say it's a "creature" disqualifies it. If I can describe an appearance it's disqualified because it can be made with a combination of shapes and colors. Similar issues occur no matter what sense we use. So the only thing that could qualify is something we inherently can't communicate, which might exist but can't actually be discussed because the moment we can put it into words it no longer qualifies
 
OP
OP
Mukrab

Mukrab

Banned
Apr 19, 2020
7,712
I'm thinking about something truly unique right now.

I can't explain it to you though because you have no frame of reference for it within your tangible reality. I'm thinking of it though, so you'll just have to trust me.
Think about something unique that you can draw and then show me. Don't say it is impossible. At least in some cases it won't be. Like if plants didn't exist on earth, they could still be drawn. Can you for instance think of a creature that has features that don't exist on earth in some shape or another? If you can then draw it, or does every feature that's possible in the universe exist on earth and therefore you can't?
 

Deleted member 9241

Oct 26, 2017
10,416
Tell me you've never done LSD without telling me you've never done LSD
 

thediamondage

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,676
Einstein's theory of relatively. Its a mind breaking concept and it could have been theorized anytime in the past 3000 years, and its entirely possible if Einstein didn't make some pretty big leaps in intuitive thought we may never have thought about it.

There are some great scifi books where alien races don't discover relatively and when they go out into space the trravelers run into HUGE problems related to time and dying of radiation, as their ships get faster and faster relatively means time goes slower for them than their home planet so by the time they return thousands of years has passed for everyone else while only a few months for them.

Relatively has impacts on a ton of things we don't really think about like GPS, silicon chips at very dense levels, etc.
 

QisTopTier

Community Resettler
Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,743
The other day I said my friend's isp left him with a leaking gaping hole of packet loss

Just because you cant think of random absurd shit on the fly doesnt mean others cant
 

Lmo2017

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,157
To the east of Parts Unknown...
WJhJel.gif


I mean come on.
 

Manu

Member
Oct 27, 2017
17,191
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Think about something unique that you can draw and then show me. Don't say it is impossible. At least in some cases it won't be. Like if plants didn't exist on earth, they could still be drawn. Can you for instance think of a creature that has features that don't exist on earth in some shape or another? If you can then draw it, or does every feature that's possible in the universe exist on earth and therefore you can't?

How do you communicate something if the language to describe it doesn't exist

EDIT: all of this

I mean what you're saying is essentially meaningless. Especially since by your definition, anything that can be put into words or even pictures is disqualified (since if I have a way to explain it, I must be utilizing existing concepts) so the moment somebody is able to communicate something by your definition the thing fails. Basically all you're saying is that people need language to communicate concepts, which is irrelevant. Like let's say you're even just talking about imagining a creature. The fact that I can say it's a "creature" disqualifies it. If I can describe an appearance it's disqualified because it can be made with a combination of shapes and colors. Similar issues occur no matter what sense we use. So the only thing that could qualify is something we inherently can't communicate, which might exist but can't actually be discussed because the moment we can put it into words it no longer qualifies
 
OP
OP
Mukrab

Mukrab

Banned
Apr 19, 2020
7,712
How do you communicate something if the language to describe it doesn't exist
Like I said, you draw it. Like if horns, teeth, arms, legs, whatever didn't exist on earth (or humans) but I thought of a creature that had them, I could just draw it and show you.
 

Tophat Jones

Alt Account
Banned
Oct 26, 2017
14,946
Think about something unique that you can draw and then show me. Don't say it is impossible. At least in some cases it won't be. Like if plants didn't exist on earth, they could still be drawn. Can you for instance think of a creature that has features that don't exist on earth in some shape or another? If you can then draw it, or does every feature that's possible in the universe exist on earth and therefore you can't?
I feel like you aren't even quite sure what your are asking for. Or what the rules of the thread are.
 

astro

Member
Oct 25, 2017
57,456
Like I said, you draw it. Like if horns, teeth, arms, legs, whatever didn't exist on earth (or humans) but I thought of a creature that had them, I could just draw it and show you.
That doesn't do a thing to avoid your disqualifications.

As others are saying, I don't really think you understand what you are asking for here.
 

Zeliard

Member
Jun 21, 2019
11,062
OP genuinely reads like a parody of some writer who's never gotten high trying to write a stoner
 
Dec 16, 2017
2,056
Post your examples if you disagree.

If we lived in a solid planet that had no liquids, there is no chance someone would think of anything remotely close to a liquid, unless we had technology to melt something down and then we'd figure it out, but then again, you're just referencing something you know from experience.

Alright prove me wrong.

Bose-Einstein condensate is a state of matter that was theoretical in 1924 and finally created in 1995. How is that not remotely close to thinking of a liquid in a world where liquids don't exist? Remember, in my example, the solution was theoretical for decades before technology had progressed to make it happen.
 

Ascenion

Prophet of Truth - One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,349
Mecklenburg-Strelitz
I mean I don't think there's anything that, in existence or at least our understood existence, cannot be recreated. Therefore nothing imo is inherently unique. You just think you thought of it first which, probably isn't true. I also think humans are insignificant creatures on the whole so.
 
Dec 16, 2017
2,056
I mean I don't think there's anything that, in existence or at least our understood existence, cannot be recreated. Therefore nothing imo is inherently unique. You just think you thought of it first which, probably isn't true. I also think humans are insignificant creatures on the whole so.
You might not have thought of something first, but historically, we know people have developed unique ideas first before they were adopted by others.
 

KCroxtonJr

Member
Oct 28, 2017
1,504
I mean, if I simplify your OP to we can't think of anything that doesn't exist in some way in the universe as we know it, then I agree.

I wouldn't label this as a "human" problem though, as everything that currently exists in our knowledge has the same limitation. That limitation is the inability to truly create something from nothing, as far as we can prove today anyways.
 

Ashes of Dreams

Fallen Guardian of Unshakable Resolve
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May 22, 2020
15,020
The way you've set up the thread you can write off anything anyone brings forward. Thus to the letter of your exact definition of "unique", sure there can't be. But to the spirit of the concept of something being unique, obviously there can be.
 

Ascenion

Prophet of Truth - One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,349
Mecklenburg-Strelitz
You might not have thought of something first, but historically, we know people have developed unique ideas first before they were adopted by others.
You don't know that though. You just know historically someone presented an idea they thought was unique before others adopted it. You cannot prove that it was an inherently unique thought that they were the first person to think of it. You can't say that someone without the means to express the idea didn't think of it first.

The OP can't be proven wrong. Even the answer they accepted isn't actually a unique idea. This question has been posed before and that answer has been given. We just aren't aware of it.
 

Rosebud

Two Pieces
Member
Apr 16, 2018
44,393
Society itself is unique. Politics, philosophy, writing, history, culture, sociology, math, art, literature... these concepts weren't found in nature.
 

astro

Member
Oct 25, 2017
57,456
You don't know that though. You just know historically someone presented an idea they thought was unique before others adopted it. You cannot prove that it was an inherently unique thought that they were the first person to think of it. You can't say that someone without the means to express the idea didn't think of it first.

The OP can't be proven wrong. Even the answer they accepted isn't actually a unique idea. This question has been posed before and that answer has been given. We just aren't aware of it.
The point is someone somewhere did think of it first, and at that point it was unique. And there are examples of unique things ITT.

The ridiculous disqualifications make it meaningless, unique in this context doesn't mean "thought something up in total vacccum of input" and never did.
 

Ascenion

Prophet of Truth - One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,349
Mecklenburg-Strelitz
Society itself is unique. Politics, philosophy, writing, history, culture, sociology, math, art, literature... these concepts weren't found in nature.
How is society unique when multiple humans have thought of these ideas?
The point is someone somewhere did think of it first, and at that point it was unique. And there are examples of unique things ITT.

The ridiculous disqualifications make it meaningless, unique in this context doesn't mean "thought something up in total vacccum of input" and never did.
If this is limited to just humans versus humans sure. If the idea is that humans aren't capable of unique concepts in the sense that something likely already did it then that is also probably true. It's improbable that we are the only intelligent life in the universe and it's impossible that our concepts are unique. Intelligent life itself is inherently not unique.
 
Dec 16, 2017
2,056
You don't know that though. You just know historically someone presented an idea they thought was unique before others adopted it. You cannot prove that it was an inherently unique thought that they were the first person to think of it. You can't say that someone without the means to express the idea didn't think of it first.
Some ideas are too complex to exist entirely in someone's mind without going through the effort of exploring them in writing. There's a reason why your teachers ask you to show your work in math.
 

Rosebud

Two Pieces
Member
Apr 16, 2018
44,393
How is society unique when multiple humans have thought of these ideas?

It's unique to human species, I though this was the point of the thread.

If you mean unique as "only one person", it's impossible because we all have the same origins and instincts. We only survive in society helping each other and improving on ideas.

It's improbable that we are the only intelligent life in the universe and it's impossible that our concepts are unique. Intelligent life itself is inherently not unique.

We don't know that at all. I very much doubt any kind of alien life would be anything like humans (unless they happen to evolve in a planet exactly like Earth with the same convenient conditions that allowed mammals to thrive)
 
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astro

Member
Oct 25, 2017
57,456
How is society unique when multiple humans have thought of these ideas?

If this is limited to just humans versus humans sure. If the idea is that humans aren't capable of unique concepts in the sense that something likely already did it then that is also probably true. It's improbable that we are the only intelligent life in the universe and it's impossible that our concepts are unique. Intelligent life itself is inherently not unique.
We're just talking about humans, otherwise this is even more meaningless.
 

I am a Bird

Member
Oct 31, 2017
7,379
Sounds like you are describing civilizations that don't have a concept of colours that don't naturally occur. Like Greece and the colour blue, or some societies and the colour green. And just not having a frame of reference for it.
 

jackie daytona

Alt Account
Banned
Feb 15, 2022
1,240
I often think about this when thinking about other universes, or what might be outside our own.

The idea that there could be some reality that doesn't have things like matter, or energy…like I can wonder, but I don't think it's possible for anyone to actually conceptualize it, whether it actually exists or not.
 

Zeshile

Prophet of Regret Corrupted by Vengeance
Avenger
Dec 22, 2017
439
Kansas
If I did think of something, how would I describe it? I'm imagining a Florb with roggew all over it's body, in place of fur or skin. It doesn't have eyes, but instead has garms.

Our visual mediums can't do it justice however, so unfortunately you'll never be able to see it.
 

Scottt

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,246
Thought is based on experience. I don't understand what the challenge is to prove--that thought can occur outside of experience?
 

grang

Member
Nov 13, 2017
10,134
Think about something unique that you can draw and then show me. Don't say it is impossible. At least in some cases it won't be. Like if plants didn't exist on earth, they could still be drawn. Can you for instance think of a creature that has features that don't exist on earth in some shape or another? If you can then draw it, or does every feature that's possible in the universe exist on earth and therefore you can't?
This kind of just seems like someone draws something and you're like "yep thought of that" no matter what
 

darz1

Member
Dec 18, 2017
7,144
You are using the definition of "unique" that doesnt fall in line with its common usage. Having a reference point doesn't mean something is not unique.

The word you are thinking of is "unfathomable".