Have we reached the pinnacle of human creativity?

1136 Views 18 Replies 10 Participants Last post by Proto, Jun 21, 2005

culubalo

Discussion Starter · Jun 20, 2005

I always believed that the human potential has a limmit however also that humans would never actually achieve it but edge to ever closer...
I also believe that human achievments is linked to its creativity.
I think we are really etching close to our limits...

In the movie industry for example there are so many remakes of past concepts from star wars to herbie, and the only good books out these days seem to be harry potter... In fact it has been aeons since there has been something truly unique anywhere in human progress.

Please not I haven't given much thought on the issue and am only asking your opinion.

No need to start an argument/flame war over this

NO ANSWER IS REALLY RIGHT OR WRONG UNLESS IT IS CLEARLY WRONG BUT OF COURSE IT CANNOT EVER BE CLEARLY RIGHT

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Xymet

· #2 · Jun 20, 2005

Human knowledge is limited surely, however we humans have not reached that. Maybe it can never be so. You are quite right about the Harry Potter books, which are quite unique in that sense. All these other books that I've come across have come from kindof the same story line, the plot seems kindof same, so maybe human creativity too is limited? we are closing on to our limits, but can we really close upon it? I wonder if that day would come cos, life seems to be like a passing dream. One moment you are here, next moment you dont even feel as if you had been so, but you have a distant memory that you have.... so it really rules out.... maybe we are real close, maybe we arent but then again who knows?

Hannibal

· #3 · Jun 20, 2005

No. If we dont annihilate each other with nuclear warfare, biological/chemical warfare, or just common warfare we can accomplish a lot more specially with the advances in the biotechnology sector and electronics technology. I am not saying we are going to get much more advance in the coming years or decades but in a dozen centuries in a few thousand of years the technology will be amazing things we cannot even imagine will be possible.

Boltzmann

· #4 · Jun 20, 2005

Otrivin said:
You are quite right about the Harry Potter books, which are quite unique in that sense. All these other books that I've come across have come from kindof the same story line, the plot seems kindof same, so maybe human creativity too is limited?

Have you read the Golden Age trilogy, by John C. Wright? If you haven’t, then you should do so. Its storyline, plot and characters are completely innovative. Harry Potter books don’t come even CLOSE to what Wright achieved in his trilogy.

There are a lot of good things coming out in the sci-fi front. Damien Broderick, Greg Egan and others are all producing innovative works. Maybe you wouldn’t be complaining if you’d read the right books

Xymet

· #5 · Jun 20, 2005

Have you read the Golden Age trilogy, by John C. Wright? If you haven’t, then you should do so. Its storyline, plot and characters are completely innovative. Harry Potter books don’t come even CLOSE to what Wright achieved in his trilogy.

There are a lot of good things coming out in the sci-fi front. Damien Broderick, Greg Egan and others are all producing innovative works. Maybe you wouldn’t be complaining if you’d read the right books

Well yeah.... i'll keep that in mind.... hehe

No. If we dont annihilate each other with nuclear warfare, biological/chemical warfare, or just common warfare we can accomplish a lot more specially with the advances in the biotechnology sector and electronics technology. I am not saying we are going to get much more advance in the coming years or decades but in a dozen centuries in a few thousand of years the technology will be amazing things we cannot even imagine will be possible.

yeah.... like who ever would believe that we have something thats called a TV which is kind of a box like wood chipped of, from which we can see stuff . and what about mobiles? who'd believe that either

ceramiclion

· #6 · Jun 20, 2005

No...I don't believe we're anywhere near the limits. Just that since everything nowadays is all about Business a lot of artists have gone middle of the road and only make subtles changes to the old formula, I think remakes of old movies are fine as long as they respect and pay tribute to the original.

F-3582

· #7 · Jun 20, 2005

In my opinion all that re-make crap is caused by the human strife towards maximum profit.

Look at the MTV single charts. Is there any innovative song in there? A lot of HipHop crap (This is my personal opinion - we can discuss this in another thread, if you like) and the new Backstreet Boys single, but nothing that would make you say: "F4CK! oO That was awesome!"

Do you want to know why? Because nobody wants innovation nowadays. A decent song wouldn't sell as well as the old "It's getting hot in here" song by Nelly. So let's just make another remix and everyone will buy it. Those big music corporations deserve a nice kick in the crotch, but most people are satisfied with that low-level entertainment. Big Brother anyone?

But of course, as long as there are humans out there, there will be creativity, even if it is well hidden behind the big commerce.

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Xymet

· #8 · Jun 20, 2005

hmmm... good point F-3582, but all this well could be coz, everything that we need is already there? and since tech has clouded our visions we cannot see beyond it? well in my opinion, i think we all have abilities but some unpolished. Theres even an old saying, something which goes like "you can shine no matter what you are made of" in the robots movie? maybe its kinda like that stuff... who's Our bigweld by ways :lol :lol

F-3582

· #9 · Jun 20, 2005

Otrivin said:
hmmm... good point F-3582, but all this well could be coz, everything that we need is already there? and since tech has clouded our visions we cannot see beyond it?

What radio stations do you have in your country? Are there any playing not the big charts stuff? I gave up listening to those stations, because they all sound alike (and the moderators are soooo stupid!), but there are some good ones. Especially one local station previously dedicated to classical music only plays wonderful music of all genres. There are many good bands out there, the problem is that most people won't even know them.

Another problem is that even if a good band has finally made it to a radio station playlist, they will only repeat one song over and over. Do you know any Radiohead tunes other than "Creep"?

Player-X

· #10 · Jun 20, 2005

You can mutalate a nursery rhyme with bad words and throw some porn music in and call it rap and still expect to make it on MTV

F-3582

· #11 · Jun 20, 2005

In germany there have been several phenomena that made me think about the common sanity.

- Schnappi (not Hiphop-related) - a "song" about a crocodile "performed" by a little girl featuring stupid text, absolutely boring melody and a below-primary school singing performance. But it made it to Number one of the german single charts.

- "Aggro Berlin" - a Hiphop label hosting several MCs sharing the same characteristics: aggressive, lame texts - one of them could be even considered N4zi - but a big fan community among the ten to sixteen-year old low-intellect kids. I've come across a bunch of baggie-pants-and-tent-wearing schoolkids singing something like: "I'm the king of my block - here I get wepons, drugs and sex!" - Disturbing...

- Jamba! (UK might know them as Jamster!) - a mobile ringtone portal making boatloads of dough with stupid songs like "Crazy Frog - Axel F". You can't watch music TV programmes anymore, because the commercials are full of that crap.

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ChankastRules

· #12 · Jun 20, 2005

Hey, now the Crazy ( Annoying ) Frog was a unique and brilliant invention by swedes, don't you ever insult it.

And to answer the question: No, not for movies, not for games, not for books, and not for anything else either. There's innovative new stuff being produced every single day, I'd say it's going faster now then ever before.

It's just that now we have such a massive amount of things being produced that it's hard to find the innovative things among them ( which Boltzman illustrated by presenting innovateive books that you haven't tried for example, I could do the same ). Who could imagine a woman making a living out of making IQ toys for dogs?, it's very innovative yet most of you probably haven't heard about it

Cloud Strife 7

· #13 · Jun 20, 2005

I've come across a bunch of baggie-pants-and-tent-wearing schoolkids singing something like: "I'm the king of my block - here I get wepons, drugs and sex!" - Disturbing...

You should come to Romania. You`ll find the majority of kids wanting to be gangsters, kings, punks, drog deallers, robbers, murderers...and the list could continue. If a kid ever wanted to grow up the nice, peacefull way all the other kids will be against him and reject him all the way. That is really disturbing...
Anyway, I don`t think we reached the top yet. Who figured that men would discover fire in the Prehistoric era (and that era was a long and non-evolving era)? Who figured that we would use guns in the Middle Age? Who would have thought we would have biological,chemical and nuclear wepons 100 years ago? And who ever thought we would use computers? We can`t see the future, so we won`t know if we reached our top. It may seem like a stand still now, but so was the Prehistoric Age.

Boltzmann

· #14 · Jun 20, 2005

Cloud Strife 7 said:
You should come to Romania. You`ll find the majority of kids wanting to be gangsters, kings, punks, drog deallers, robbers, murderers...and the list could continue. If a kid ever wanted to grow up the nice, peacefull way all the other kids will be against him and reject him all the way. That is really disturbing...

This also happens in many Rio de Janeiro neighborhoods. Too many 8th grade kids who almost worship drug dealers and their criminal factions (they like to speak in the slang used by the dealers, and are always talking about the “greatest” drug dealers of the city). Wasted youth, if you ask me.

Xymet

· #15 · Jun 21, 2005

Back here in Maldives, one third of the whole population are either drug addicts, criminals or some sort of idiotic bunch. And the worst part is that the from this lot around 80 percent is Kids and Youths between ages 12-25 and the age rises up. No wonder the country is rotting up.

F-3582

· #16 · Jun 21, 2005

This happens everywhere, I suppose. At the moment the media is making people deaf, dumb and blind. And the great majority of us won't even notice.

culubalo

Discussion Starter · #17 · Jun 21, 2005

No. If we dont annihilate each other with nuclear warfare, biological/chemical warfare, or just common warfare we can accomplish a lot more specially with the advances in the biotechnology sector and electronics technology.

I agree with that to a degree, because as new things are discovered it paves the way to new kinds of creativity and knowledge yet I don't know if we could possibly discover everything in the end because of our minds.

Have you read the Golden Age trilogy, by John C. Wright? If you haven’t, then you should do so. Its storyline, plot and characters are completely innovative.

How many original movies and books comeout these days? Not many but we are not saying none come out whatsoever (harry potter was just a major example of which everyone knows of)...

During the times of shakespeare (though i don't agree wiith 100%) every new play out was like an original.

ChankastRules

· #18 · Jun 21, 2005 (Edited)

During the times of shakespeare (though i don't agree wiith 100%) every new play out was like an original.

It's not strange at all? how many plays did they have back at that time compared to the amount we have now? and how many came out to the amount of the ones that come out now?, there's still a lot of original and innovateive stuff like I stated before, it's just hard to find it in the huge amount of things being reproduced over and over again in different forms to make easy money.

Well, that and let's not forget that Shakespear was brilliant

so people keep reproducing him

, I'd say if you can count musical as plays looks at Andrew Lloyd Webber today

I mean stuff like cats who would think of that? :lol:

Proto

· #19 · Jun 21, 2005

During the times of shakespeare (though i don't agree wiith 100%) every new play out was like an original.

Err... not really. Even back then people liked to copy the masters for profit purposes. When Cervantes Quixote came out, the number of copies and wannabe's was so big that Cervantes had to write the second part where Quixote ends his adventures for good so that this didn't continue anymore. Lack of originilarity is not particular of our age

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