Telvanni Towers : The Elder Scrolls Series Discussion

» Tue Oct 19, 2010 8:49 pm

Okay, wait. How are these things truly original?

Cars? Jets? Humans have been refining transportation for ages. We've had horses, chariots, wagons, boats, carriages, and more for centuries. So a car is a refinement of the entire concept of a vehicle, which we've had ever since the bronze age. Same with a plane - plus, we have obvious inspiration for flying because birds happen to exist. Insects exist. How are these concepts original? They're the culmination of technological development through the industrial revolution and beyond.

CDs aren't original. People have been working on ways to record and play back music for centuries. We've been developing new and more efficient ways to store information in anolog and then digital form for decades. CDs are again the culmination of technologies over a period of time - it's not a truly original or new idea, but a repackaging of an old idea.

My point was that people don't invent things out of the blue. No one lives in a vacuum, no man is an island, etc. While we can constantly rearrange existing ideas into new configurations, we're still starting with a saturation of cultural influences that cannot be ignored. Please find an example of something that was created without any outside influence, something that has no conceptual connection to anything else that's ever existed. Technology that is not built on concepts and technologies that came before?

How about the wheel?

And even if these are all refinements of earlier ideas, that earlier idea had to come from somewhere. There has to be an initial, original idea from which these others take their inspiration.
hmm... I guess this argument is a lot like determinism in physics. "That effect was caused by this, which was caused by this, which was caused by this..." "This idea was inspired by this, which was inspired by this, which was inspired by this..."
So the same logic that says there has to be a "prima causa" could claim that there has to be a "prima idea".

I will concede the point that my initial examples weren't valid ones, though.

» Tue Oct 19, 2010 5:35 pm

Wheel: someone saw something round rolling down a hill, noticed it worked well. Or, more likely, it came from the technology of moving things by placing them on logs. Notice also that the wheel was invented separately in both Europe and the middle east, and that the Olmecs (entirely separate from every one else) were also working toward the technology.

» Wed Oct 20, 2010 12:24 am

Wheel: someone saw something round rolling down a hill, noticed it worked well. Or, more likely, it came from the technology of moving things by placing them on logs. Notice also that the wheel was invented separately in both Europe and the middle east, and that the Olmecs (entirely separate from every one else) were also working toward the technology.

Yeah... I thought of that. The two "original" technologies that immediately came to my mind were the wheel and fire. Both of which were almost certainly inspired by nature. Which still counts as inspiration, I suppose...
So maybe we aren't capable of original ideas, and all our thoughts and creations are the products of our environments. How depressing...

» Wed Oct 20, 2010 2:02 am

I challenge everyone in this topic that believes nothing can possibly be original to explain the greatest superhero of all time, Spider-Man. Also, the2crow is right, end of discussion, if I see just one more person who disagrees with him I will personally see to it that they will never know happiness again.

» Tue Oct 19, 2010 3:48 pm

Hey, how about language? Surely the abstract representation of concepts through vocalization was an unprecedented occurrence. I can't think of anything that might have "inspired" that.
The fact that it was a gradual, probably multi-generational invention detracts from it's value as an example... But still. I think that everything *had* to start somewhere. There *had* to have been at least one original idea at some point in history.

» Wed Oct 20, 2010 4:33 am

Language is an evolutional thing. We started out with basic grunts and gestures to indicate direction, threat level, etc. Those arose out of our ability to make them, perhaps inspired by other animals or sounds encountered in nature. Eventually those grunts were standardized in pitch, duration, and "syllables," allowing ugh to mean a different thing than murh and giving rise to "language" (plenty of animals have this sort of communication). From there it is just iteration. Language arose out of a biological evolution, and is somewhat like arguing over whether legs were an original idea. At some point, yes they were, but the fact that they are a development of nature, not a discovery of man, makes the point moot.

Spider-Man: may your mouth be stuffed with birds.

» Wed Oct 20, 2010 12:10 am

I challenge everyone in this topic that believes nothing can possibly be original to explain the greatest superhero of all time, Spider-Man. Also, the2crow is right, end of discussion, if I see just one more person who disagrees with him I will personally see to it that they will never know happiness again.

The whole idea of superheroes started off in the modern era with Superman, (whose origin was in fact inspired by someone, who to avoid getting this thread locked for religion, we'll just call "Brian"), and the whole superhero thing in general is just inspired by folk heroes like Siegfried, Gilgamesh and Beowulf.

» Tue Oct 19, 2010 8:59 pm

If mushroom towers and Spiderman are original, then I can be original too. I came up with two great ideas, marshmallow domes and Fishwoman.

» Wed Oct 20, 2010 4:56 am

Yeah... I thought of that. The two "original" technologies that immediately came to my mind were the wheel and fire. Both of which were almost certainly inspired by nature. Which still counts as inspiration, I suppose...
So maybe we aren't capable of original ideas, and all our thoughts and creations are the products of our environments. How depressing...

Nah, it's not depressing. I don't think that originality for its own sake has any value. We've still invented and developed all kinds of awesome stuff, and continue to refine everything - language, science, technology, storytelling, everything - we do and our evolution culturally and as a species continues apace.

And people still find ways to "hide their sources" or integrate inspirations in unexpected ways, so we still get cool stuff.

» Tue Oct 19, 2010 4:10 pm

Numeral systems.

Nature only supports base one counting. Multiple cultures independently arrived at very different counting systems. The very concept of "zero" being a number itself took centuries if not millennia to hash out. Someone had to determine that 10 + 1 could actually equal 11, after all.

» Wed Oct 20, 2010 1:50 am

So it's possible to create something without any influence from anything else? Impressive.

This depends on how you define influence. Many of the concepts, but not all, of special relativity came exclusively from the mind of Einstein. People had previously considered what the speed of light may be, but only Einstein defined it as a constant irregardless of the motion of the observer. I think that is quite original.

» Wed Oct 20, 2010 2:15 am

He still based it on observations of the real world and on mathematical formulas, and hence it is based on/inspired by such. If it hadn't been, it wouldn't be considered true.

Numerical systems themselves are based on the number of fingers/toes we have (or on some other obscure but still important criteria) and are really just an extension of language applied to quantifying the world.

» Wed Oct 20, 2010 3:09 am

I challenge everyone in this topic that believes nothing can possibly be original to explain the greatest superhero of all time, Spider-Man. Also, the2crow is right, end of discussion, if I see just one more person who disagrees with him I will personally see to it that they will never know happiness again.

Spiderman? wasm't he just a repacaging of Ant-Man? who was based on ants swarming a gingerbread cookie?

» Wed Oct 20, 2010 6:17 am

This depends on how you define influence. Many of the concepts, but not all, of special relativity came exclusively from the mind of Einstein. People had previously considered what the speed of light may be, but only Einstein defined it as a constant irregardless of the motion of the observer. I think that is quite original.

Its not original at all - being the first to notice something or the first to put a fact into words is not being original, its just being smarter than everybody else. As has been stated, all science is just observation of nature. Math is no different, it just uses abstracts because lets face it, nobody wants to line up seventy coconuts as a way of communicating the idea of seventy - its just observation of how many things you have or potentially have.

If you have to resort to obscure and minute sciences/mathematics to try and find something original is it really worth arguing? I'll make the same challenge I did before, if you can think up anything original you win - otherwise, what point are you really trying to make?

» Wed Oct 20, 2010 4:55 am

Numerical systems themselves are based on the number of fingers/toes we have (or on some other obscure but still important criteria) and are really just an extension of language applied to quantifying the world.

I'd partially beg to differ. Try counting to twenty with just your fingers and thumbs. Most people would probably flash "ten" twice, or to use Roman symbols, they'd show the equivalent of XX. That's "language", assigning an arbitrary symbol to the concept of "ten". Some would use binary, showing the equivalent of 10100. Using the same two symbols in systematic combinations to represent all integers takes something more sophisticated than just language.

Its not original at all - being the first to notice something or the first to put a fact into words is not being original, its just being smarter than everybody else.

So having ever been outside of aggregate human knowledge is an insufficient condition for originality? Then what are the conditions for originality?

» Wed Oct 20, 2010 12:32 am

This depends on how you define influence. Many of the concepts, but not all, of special relativity came exclusively from the mind of Einstein. People had previously considered what the speed of light may be, but only Einstein defined it as a constant irregardless of the motion of the observer. I think that is quite original.

Actually Einstein based special relativity on work on Lorentzs attempt to describe the movement of Light through the luminiferous aether. Lorentz observed this from nature.

So having ever been outside of aggregate human knowledge is an insufficient condition for originality? Then what are the conditions for originality?

Pretty damn fickle.

Also: relative to the observer.

» Wed Oct 20, 2010 2:56 am

Even if you did come up with something that might be original, all the methods you have of explaining it would tie it back to the world and what you were thinking of. Can it be original if you can explain it?

» Tue Oct 19, 2010 9:05 pm

Even if you did come up with something that might be original, all the methods you have of explaining it would tie it back to the world and what you were thinking of. Can it be original if you can explain it?

That's why you invent your own terms to describe it, so you don't get stuck with pre-existing terms baggage. THough really, as for the whole originality thing, I'd say that every human takes inspiration from other sources and nature, it's just that some people generate a particularly good output when given the data.

» Wed Oct 20, 2010 9:34 am

I'd partially beg to differ. Try counting to twenty with just your fingers and thumbs. Most people would probably flash "ten" twice, or to use Roman symbols, they'd show the equivalent of XX. That's "language", assigning an arbitrary symbol to the concept of "ten". Some would use binary, showing the equivalent of 10100. Using the same two symbols in systematic combinations to represent all integers takes something more sophisticated than just language.

Language is nothing more than a series of symbols, written language even more so. Numbers are nothing more than another symbol, just like the play button on your DVD player or the dollar sign. The word "ten", the numeral XX, or the number 10 are all symbols representing a standard amount of something.

The point is that we humans exist on a singular plane of existence. Anything we do, say, or think will be influenced by that plane.

» Wed Oct 20, 2010 8:37 am

I think people are hung up on the idea of originality being the creation of ideas out of nothing at all. I think originality is what I said earlier in this thread: People find novel and interesting ways to synthesize their sources.

» Wed Oct 20, 2010 4:08 am

The word "ten", the numeral XX, or the number 10 are all symbols representing a standard amount of something.

"10" is not itself a symbol, but a combination of two symbols, "1" and "0". You could just as easily assign a unique symbol to the concept "ten", such as "A" is used in hexadecimal. That "1" and "0" should be "ten" is no more obvious than "1" and "0" should be "two".

Also: relative to the observer.

The point is that we humans exist on a singular plane of existence. Anything we do, say, or think will be influenced by that plane.

I think people are hung up on the idea of originality being the creation of ideas out of nothing at all.

All of this. Originality without scope is meaningless. If the condition for originality is that something must not exist before its invention, and that its components must not exist before its invention, and the components of the components must not exist before its invention, ad infinitum, you're inhibiting anything from ever being original by definition. X creates. Creation presumes existence. Therefore, X exists, thus anything created by X violates the condition for originality. Conclusion: X can never be original, so originality is impossible. Change the condition, and the conclusion changes as well.

Of course, my argument can be defeated by showing that creation does not presume existence.

» Tue Oct 19, 2010 9:42 pm

I think people are hung up on the idea of originality being the creation of ideas out of nothing at all. I think originality is what I said earlier in this thread: People find novel and interesting ways to synthesize their sources.

Good point. If that's the case, then all of Morrowind was definitely original.

» Tue Oct 19, 2010 11:10 pm

"10" is not itself a symbol, but a combination of two symbols, "1" and "0". You could just as easily assign a unique symbol to the concept "ten", such as "A" is used in hexadecimal. That "1" and "0" should be "ten" is no more obvious than "1" and "0" should be "two".

A combination of symbols is still a symbol.

I think originality is what I said earlier in this thread: People find novel and interesting ways to synthesize their sources.

This. I don't think "originality" is the right word for it, but it serves just as well when we're talking about art or world building. The fact that were all inspired by the same things doesn't mean we can't output an interesting interpretation of those things. For me, something rare or interesting is close enough to originality in the fantasy sense.

» Wed Oct 20, 2010 10:07 am

A combination of symbols is still a symbol.

After consideration, I'll concede that numeral systems can be thought of as an extension to language. My original point was that they have no obvious natural anologue in contrast to the inventions of language, the wheel, fire usage, etc. Thus, the invention of numeral systems is more original than the invention of things which are naturally inspired.

» Wed Oct 20, 2010 7:09 am

To me, the Telvanni towers are awefully reminiscent of certain underground graphic art from the seventies.