Asklemmy

43781 readers

868 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

If you were asked to think of something you never thought of before, what would be the most reliable way to do it? (lemm.ee)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by b92rk1yzrm@lemm.ee to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

5 comments fedilink hide all child comments

When I read about how most of our thoughts are repetitive, I wondered if it would be possible for us to have a thought that is completely new or original by will. Is there some way we can have unique thoughts whenever we wish to?

Please note that this question does not focus on our brain's mental capacity or free will to be able to think of something original. You could think of it something like asking you to paint something original; I am not asking if you are even able to paint in the first place, but instead how you would paint it if you could.

Also you should ideally be able to think of something new completely by your own in your consciously aware and normal self, without relying on external factors like taking inspiration from your surroundings or words from a recent/ongoing conversations, looking at the content open in your device, using any drugs or consumables, being affected by strong emotions etc.

Edit: Elaboration in last paragraph

top 5 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] electrogamerman@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago

I'd just think of something positive about myself.

[–] taladar@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think the best way to think of something new (to you, something new to all of humanity is harder of course) would be to pick some aspect of society, your daily life, a technology or social norm you are familiar with,... and analyse which underlying assumptions make it the way it is and then just figure out what would happen if that assumption didn't hold. That is basically what a lot of classic science fiction writers (among others) did. Take e.g. Asimov's Nightfall, a story about a world with (IIRC) 6 suns where it is only night once every 2000 years so people are not accustomed to darkness at all. Or Terry Bisson's They're Made Out of Meat where he questions our implicit assumption that aliens would be meat creatures like us.

[–] AlligatorBlizzard@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The astrophysics nerd in me wonders if anyone has tried to model that six star system, is there actually a stable configuration for that?

[–] idiomaddict@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago

Is it really dumb to think it would work like carbon?

[–] demystify@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 year ago

I'd take two random words/topics, and try to think of something that involves both of them.

For example, I just thought of a bicycle and of curtains. I immediately imagined a person riding a bicycle with curtains stuck in their wheels, getting torn more and more as they tried to cycle away. That's a thought I don't think I ever had before.