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The value of thinking unoriginal thoughts
Project: Epiphanies
Project: Epiphanies
Recently I had the thought: Perhaps there are just too many people on the planet to sustain a good life for individuals?
Now, this was an interesting moment for me. The 'overpopulation' thesis is neither original nor novel, and arriving at this as a personal insight made me question the assumed lack of value in having unoriginal thoughts. I myself hadn't seriously spent time with this idea before, although I had heard it voiced repeatedly, when it was not being merely assumed to be true. Indeed, I had long assumed it was true, and it is a staple of sustainability politics. However, I, personally, had not really worked it through.
A premium value is placed on original thought, and of course it is immensely valuable - but what if we spend some time thinking through ideas that are already tired, tarnished or discarded? Or even better, ideas that are so obvious we don't think to state them, let alone spend time with them?
Brains are not a collection of logic gates. Two brains thinking the same thought will utilise different physical structures in the brain, and the relation to sensory and memory structures in each case will also be completely different. There is every reason to assume that because of this, the same thought as expressed in verbal or textual language will result in a vastly different personal experience in different minds.
Perhaps this is the mental equivalent of tracing over an existing drawing, choosing how and when and what to trace, and what to ignore? Any skilled designer who uses hand drawing will tell you the value of the act of tracing, and how the simple and seemingly redundant act of reproducing elements of a drawing in this way will offer fresh insights.
A skilled urban designer I have worked with identifies tracing even more bluntly as an essential act of design. In my own experience, retracing familiar lines engages the conscious mind, and in doing so it frees the subconscious to think around corners and choose novel paths through design problems.
So for these reasons, I will persist in my epiphany of the obvious, and see what turns up.
Too many people,
Too many by far
And all of them seem to want a car
I really can't blame them,
I want one too,
And, I imagine, so do you
Now, this was an interesting moment for me. The 'overpopulation' thesis is neither original nor novel, and arriving at this as a personal insight made me question the assumed lack of value in having unoriginal thoughts. I myself hadn't seriously spent time with this idea before, although I had heard it voiced repeatedly, when it was not being merely assumed to be true. Indeed, I had long assumed it was true, and it is a staple of sustainability politics. However, I, personally, had not really worked it through.
A premium value is placed on original thought, and of course it is immensely valuable - but what if we spend some time thinking through ideas that are already tired, tarnished or discarded? Or even better, ideas that are so obvious we don't think to state them, let alone spend time with them?
Brains are not a collection of logic gates. Two brains thinking the same thought will utilise different physical structures in the brain, and the relation to sensory and memory structures in each case will also be completely different. There is every reason to assume that because of this, the same thought as expressed in verbal or textual language will result in a vastly different personal experience in different minds.
Perhaps this is the mental equivalent of tracing over an existing drawing, choosing how and when and what to trace, and what to ignore? Any skilled designer who uses hand drawing will tell you the value of the act of tracing, and how the simple and seemingly redundant act of reproducing elements of a drawing in this way will offer fresh insights.
A skilled urban designer I have worked with identifies tracing even more bluntly as an essential act of design. In my own experience, retracing familiar lines engages the conscious mind, and in doing so it frees the subconscious to think around corners and choose novel paths through design problems.
So for these reasons, I will persist in my epiphany of the obvious, and see what turns up.
Too many people,
Too many by far
And all of them seem to want a car
I really can't blame them,
I want one too,
And, I imagine, so do you
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