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this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2023
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Asklemmy
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If it could be expressed in existing ways, would it still count as entirely new or unthought of?
I think that is a linguistic question ultimately. You could take potentially utter a new sentence never before uttered even with the top 10 most used words in a language.
That is one of the most significant things about the human being. Actually I am quite surprised when people come with definitions for human nature eg. fundamentally good, fundamentally evil, homo sapiens, homo faber, etc. that the linguistic potential to turn a small set of things into infinity is often ignored. No other animal can think and speak like we do.
Not necessarily, note that I wrote, "expressed in existing ways" and not, "spoken/written in existing ways". Expression itself has a greater breadth than language alone, e.g. movement, drawing/painting, instrumental music arrangements, etc.
It includes language, absolutely, but it is not limited to language, which makes for a more challenging question imo. If not expressed in existing ways, it would meet the criteria of entirely new and unthought of, presumably, but it would also likely fail to be recognized as an expression at all.
Fair point but I think then it just expands the consideration from linguistic (which is already more than spoken or written, it also covers signed, whistled, drummed, danced, in one case I heard about -- eye movement) to semiotic.
What I meant was to not rely on objects or scenes near where you are positioned in order to think of something new.