Is it possible that the human race will run out of concepts?

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It all comes down to the subject matter.

Every day, people come up with new ideas, from the simple to the sophisticated, such as how to better arrange their closets. Is there any way the human race could ever run out of innovative ideas with such a wide range of lightbulb moments available?

In a sense, no, according to those who investigate concepts from a philosophical and biological perspective. This means even the banalest ideas, such as the best way to arrange a floral arrangement, might be considered novel concepts.

According to that definition, "the answer is no."

Despite this, O'Hara believes that the answer is still "no," but for a different reason than the one, he gave in his original statement. In the end, "It's possible." He remarked that if people continue to be inventive, then "maybe" this will be a possibility.

O'Hara likened the number of atoms in the cosmos, estimated to be roughly 1082, to the number of possible moves in a game of Go (a Chinese game played on a 19X19 grid), which is estimated to be about 1024.

According to him, the number of possible moves in a game of Go is 2X10172, which is greater than the total number of atoms in the universe.

If we consider ideas as collections of comprehensible concepts, "I don't think we'll ever run out," O'Hara argued.

Even while our brains contain a finite number of brain cells and connections, there are a near limitless number of methods to activate them to form transitory thoughts that might comprise ideas.

Unlike games of Go, human endeavors are not bound by a certain number of conceivable outcomes but rather a broader range of possibilities. So, theoretically, "there are practically an endless number of combinations," according to O'Hara's statement.

According to an email from Boston University assistant professor of psychology and brain science, Robert Reinhart, director of the university's Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience Laboratory, language is an additional example of this phenomenon. Reinhart told Live Science that.

It is possible to create an object class so enormous that it can be considered "infinite" by all means, even though the number of possible elements is finite (such as the letters in the alphabet).

However, Reinhart cautioned that this does not imply that human ideas are unlimited.

Rather than running out of ideas, he remarked, "It's more an acknowledgment that humans, like other biological animals, have scope and constraints, including cognitive scope and boundaries." These thoughts may be "beyond our cognitive reach" because of how our brains are constructed.

Examples include:

• Concepts that depend on sense organs we don't have.
• Math.
• Visuals that our minds aren't capable of handling.

While humans aren't capable of changing their color in the blink of an eye, animals like squid and octopuses can do it in a split second. "They can flush in a variety of hues. It's possible that they have a different sense of color or light perception than humans do. " With powers like these, who knows what kind of thoughts humans could come up with?

Putting limitations aside, what about profound ideas that have a broader impact on society? Does the human mind have an upper limit to the number of big ideas it can generate? Humanity's ability to decode the cosmos, create new businesses, and publish books rich with crucial insights about our lives and the world is a question that has been debated for decades.

O'Hara didn't think humanity had exhausted its capacity to develop helpful, essential, beautiful, or truly innovative ideas like Mozart's Symphony No. 3 or an economical and efficient renewable energy source.

He said it's only if we stop being creative and curious that we'll reach a limit on the number of good, useful, and interesting things we can come up with. Our capacity for new ideas decreases when we stop asking questions and doing acts of amazement.

In a study, Reinhart found that educational systems that reward students with grades "tend to strongly impair creativity, undermine interest, are counterproductive to learning, facilitate shallow thinking," "lead people to avoid challenging tasks, and tend to reduce intellectual risk-taking and exploration."

To "enable large, new ideas," he argued, we need to eliminate incentives and competition and instead create work and learning settings that "promote curiosity, cooperation, and critical, independent thinking."

Reference : https://www.livescience.com/can-humanity-run-out-of-ideas

Image source : https://pixabay.com/id/photos/pengusaha-bayangan-hitam-jendela-1477601/

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