Quote:
Originally Posted by j-c-c
Interesting, I had the "idea" that the protagonist here is out to lunch on his double down stance on "ideas alone are worthless", and you present a list of "ideas alone" that actually evolved into rather remarkable accomplishments, and our protagonist sticks to his guns poo pooing ideas.
Makes you wonder why he even explores his own ideas to decide if they are even worthy, ie catch 22.
It appears the "worthiness" factor on ideas may really center on whether they are his or not, but that's just a idea I have.  |
In fact I was thinking about this and you're either deliberately, and constantly, re-writing what I said, or you honestly don't understand.
I said that ideas
alone (that is, without evidence they work) are worthless. Of course that applies to my own ideas, as it applies anyone's ideas.
So I have an idea. Obviously, it is worthless until there is evidence for its veracity. (Like, that's as obvious - to me at least - as the idea the sun comes up in the morning.) Lots of my ideas amount to nothing, ipso facto they are worthless. In fact,
most of my ideas amount to nothing, I would think.
I have an idea, and then I immediately think: what evidence exists to support that idea? I might then do some research, or testing, only to find - nope, no evidence supports that idea, so that idea is worthless. Hmm, damn. Maybe I can now change the idea? Then I might try to find evidence for the new idea, but no, again there isn't any. So another worthless idea. And so it goes on, sometimes for many (10? 15?) iterations until I find an idea that works - finally, an idea with value.
Here's a concrete example, I had an idea of how I could 3-dimensionally shape the ABS spoiler I made for the back of my Insight. My idea was to make a mould and then heat the plastic, using the mould to squish the plastic into shape. I spent ages making a huge wooden mould, only to find I couldn't get even heat through such a big area of ABS. My idea didn't work - it was valueless.
I then had a quite different idea of how to shape the plastic - to use a bead roller with the plastic cold. It worked. That idea had - and has - value,
because there is evidence it works.
I could sit here and come up with maybe 10 ideas of how to shape an ABS plastic spoiler. Until they're proven in the real world, they are all valueless.
To think that people would try to claim value in ideas that don't amount to anything is to me quite bizarre - it must be that they are absolutely bereft of any ideas that
do in fact amount to something.
And a footnote. Of course people on web discussion groups just
love coming up with ideas for which there is no evidence. It's one of the enduring characteristics of this sort of discussion group. After all, it's ridiculously easy to to come up with ideas, rather than come with ideas for which there is evidence. But I must admit I kinda figured that most people thought it was just a game, and they knew that reality is quite different. But maybe not?