There are no original people

[Salvijus]

If your actions originate from the origin of life, then you're original. 

[UnbornTao]

Just now, Salvijus said:

If your actions originate from the origin of life, then you're original. 

How does that look in practice? After all, what others see are appearances - the way you, or things, show up in life.

We might say that someone like Da Vinci was original. But what are we actually talking about?

Perhaps I'm conflating things like uniqueness, inventiveness, or creativity - things that should be distinguished from this.

[Salvijus]

2 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

How does that look in practice?

You can be an expression of Tao or an expression of ego. When you're in Tao, then you're original.

[CARDOZZO]

40 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

We might say that someone like Da Vinci was original. But what are we actually talking about?

He was a insight actualizer. 

The invention of science, engineering, technology, religion and language. This is pure originality. 

I think that originality is deeply connected to insight, possibility and recontextualization.

Edited yesterday at 05:10 PM by CARDOZZO

[CARDOZZO]

Originality is the act of actualizing novel insights.

[UnbornTao]

2 hours ago, Salvijus said:

You can be an expression of Tao or an expression of ego. When you're in Tao, then you're original.

This can be both true and, at the same time, exceptionally vague. For instance, how does originality come about?

[Lyubov]

3 hours ago, Salvijus said:

If your actions originate from the origin of life, then you're original. 

Beautifully put

Which all that arises even that which we judge 

Edited 22 hours ago by Lyubov

[jacknine119]

Now I saw your post and my ego is happy because you made small "big" people for me.

[Butters]

Is your insight original? How would you know? Isn't original just a distinction your mind makes? 

If we just assume that reality consists of distinctions, how could one thing be more original than another? 

What if every possible thought, action or outcome has already been done millions of times? This universe could have existed millions of times before the version we are in now. 

Edited 21 hours ago by Butters

[UnbornTao]

6 hours ago, CARDOZZO said:

He was a insight actualizer. 

The invention of science, engineering, technology, religion and language. This is pure originality. 

I think that originality is deeply connected to insight, possibility and recontextualization.

It seems that the motivation to feel special - even though it isn't very glamorous to admit - might underlie, in large part, this search for originality; also, arrogance, in a sense. Not sure why. Might elaborate at some point.

Aside from that, yes. Although those domains were rarely invented by a single individual, so it's hard to pinpoint the source of what might have enabled their creation.

Regarding your last point, insight, yeah. That already includes possibility. Not sure about recontextualization, though.

[Sugarcoat]

I think we want originality because duality works in contrast and identity is duality so it needs contrast to be itself strongly. If everyone’s funny nobodies funny kind of logic. Lol why am I treating this like color theory or something .

Well it’s not ONLY that ofc. Originality could be many things : breaking world record in maximum amounts of avocados eaten in one day is original, but it’s not automatically desirable because of that. 
 

So it’s about being original in something you value and see as “high”. So you have those things, then you wanna enjoy an identity related to it, but in order to enjoy it strongly it needs contrast to stand out (exist more), which is other people who are NOT that. It’s like you need others to contrast and highlight and strengthen your identity. How would you identity if you were isolated on island? Thought experiment if you want 

Edited 19 hours ago by Sugarcoat

[CARDOZZO]

58 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

It seems that the motivation to feel special - even though it isn't very glamorous to admit - might underlie, in large part, this search for originality; also, arrogance, in a sense. Not sure why. Might elaborate at some point.

Sure. Jobs talked about that need to feel special. I think it is essential to believe YOU are the ONE. If you really want to do pioneer work, you gotta be delusional and obsessive. The amount of self-confidence to go against status quo and to reinvent something from scratch is a tremendous task.

1 hour ago, UnbornTao said:

Regarding your last point, insight, yeah. That already includes possibility. Not sure about recontextualization, though.

Insight is a doorway to new kinds of possible realities. Recontextualization go hand in hand with insight because you need to embody a new perspective to actualize your novel insights.

[CARDOZZO]

Leo's Blog Post

Quote

Don’t you see? If your mind is dependent on cues from society, if you need other human beings to validate for you what is true, real, right, and good, your mind can never develop beyond the development level of your culture. The only way to reach extraordinary levels of cognitive development is to go beyond every culture and every social group. This includes all religions, all universities, all corporations, all of science, all philosophical schools, all cults, all books, all podcasts, all forums, all AI, all social activities. Notice, the more developed your mind becomes, the further beyond culture it must go, the less social validation you will get. Eventually you will become so developed that you will be all alone. No one you know will be at your level of understanding. You will understand reality so deeply no one in society will understand you and you will not be able to explain it to them because they haven’t gone through the arduous and hairy development journey. This is a major reason why extraordinary development is so rare.

People do not appreciate how much of their development only exists because of the on-the-rails mechanisms that society offers — such as school or university. But who would you be, what development level would you have, without university? University is just taken for granted. University makes a certain level of development easy and automatic because it leverages the human mind's readiness to follow the herd. No university kid is intelligent enough to have invented university on his own. He's only there because society told him to go there, brainwashed him that it is right and good and normal. But imagine trying to reach a university level of development 2500 years ago all by yourself. That's analogous to the challenge of reaching extraordinary development today, to go an order of magnitude in development beyond universities.

People do not appreciate the social push-back and isolation. How comfortable are you being all alone? How comfortable are you being misunderstood by everyone you know? How comfortable are you with everyone telling you that you’re wrong and delusional? How comfortable are you with being demonized and smeared? How comfortable are you with being unemployable? How comfortable are you with contradicting all of science, religion, business, politics, and culture? Very few humans have the strength of character and integrity required to reach and sustain an extraordinary level of development because it requires overcoming your emotional dependence on the whole social domain. Do not underestimate how emotionally dependent every human is on the social domain. Your mind craves validation, approval, love, friends, social status, being liked, fitting in, being part of a like-minded group, being regarded as good rather than dangerous.

See, when an academic or scientist begins the journey of studying reality, it never occurs to him that the understanding will eventually get so deep that he will become a social outcast, leaving behind all human conventions, and be treated as a traitor and crackpot by all his colleagues. Almost no scientist or academic has the balls needed to reach extraordinary cognitive development. That’s how serious social incentives are. Science and academia is all done within the domain of social survival. Reaching extraordinary cognitive development requires cutting the social umbilical cord, which most humans are not willing to do because the costs are so high. The costs are material but also emotional. The emotional labor has a real bite which rationalists tend to overlook because scientific rationality has the benefit of being the norm in today's elite society. But good luck if you dare to question rationality and science. Now you get huge push-back and gaslighting from the Social Matrix.

Extraordinary development cannot be reached by following others, it requires leading yourself into mental territory no one has dared to go. It requires questioning things none of your colleagues is willing to question. It requires studying exotic, unconventional domains that your colleagues consider taboo. It requires a different mindset, attitude, values, and motivation than everyone else. It requires detaching yourself from the social domain, which means not only less friends and sex, it means losing many of the benefits of society. It literally endangers your life. So why do it? You'd need some extraordinary motivation that transcends survival.

Nobody appreciates just how deeply they are embedded in social survival. Just that insight is emotionally difficult to handle and will take you a decade or two of work to fully comprehend. Scientists just assume that they can reach truth or serious understanding without it rocking their social situation. This is very naive. That's not how serious understanding works. Because reality is just that profound.

Contemplate this question:

What are all the reasons that extraordinary levels of cognitive development are so rare?

 

[UnbornTao]

16 hours ago, CARDOZZO said:

Sure. Jobs talked about that need to feel special. I think it is essential to believe YOU are the ONE. If you really want to do pioneer work, you gotta be delusional and obsessive. The amount of self-confidence to go against status quo and to reinvent something from scratch is a tremendous task.

Insight is a doorway to new kinds of possible realities. Recontextualization go hand in hand with insight because you need to embody a new perspective to actualize your novel insights.

Fair enough.

I was thinking that being original is different from being different from others - like dressing up differently, having a different appearance. It may not be about novelty either. The etymology of originality is something like "being at the source."

[CARDOZZO]

34 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

Fair enough.

I was thinking that being original is different from being different from others - like dressing up differently, having a different appearance. It may not be about novelty either. The etymology of originality is something like "being at the source."

We can think that originality express itself in many degrees and forms. The spectrum of originality is vast. 

[UnbornTao]

36 minutes ago, CARDOZZO said:

We can think that originality express itself in many degrees and forms. The spectrum of originality is vast. 

Yeah, that seems to be the case.