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> True original thoughts without context don’t exist, well at least in any way we can find out as every human is the product of their own training set.

Someone wrote the first murder mystery. It wasn't something we inherited from amoebas.

Someone wrote the first Regency romance. In fact, we know who it was - Georgette Heyer.

Someone invented calculus. We didn't get that passed down from the cave men via oral history or tribal knowledge.

We've dreamed of flying for millenia, but someone invented the first practical airplane - someone specific. Yes, they built on previous knowledge. But their step was still original. It had never been done before.

And so on, for idea after idea and original creation after original creation. They all originated at some time, with someone.




I’m not denying those achievements of those individuals at all. But I am saying that those individuals didn’t invent or discover those ideas out of the blue. There was information gathered up until that point in their lives that allowed them to make those connections and form ideas from there. No idea exists in a vacuum, yes someone needs to be the first to do anything, but all knowledge is passed on.


LLMs can sometimes come up with original things as well. Also even the people who invented new things like that took some inspiration or knowledge from things that exist




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