Your definition for originality is extremely narrow. If something, say X, (it could be some music, a word or a sentence) has been expressed by someone, then it loses all claims for future originality (sort of like a perpetual copyright). You go farther than that and say that even if X itself has not been expressed earlier, it can be reduced to the sum of its parts and therefore loses all claims towards originality.

Say, the word Muggle. I’m pretty sure it hasn’t been used as a word in English history. So it is original. It seems to me you would say that the word uses the letters e, g, l, m and u, which themselves are _not_ original therefore the word isn’t either. (I could have misunderstood you, correct me if I’m wrong.)

My own definition is broader. If you say X and I too say (exactly the same) X and we arrive at it independently (without the knowledge that the other had done the same), then we have both come up with something original, even though it be the same. Take the case of the telephone where Bell and Gray raced to the patent office, I would claim that both came up with an “original” idea. Or take the invention/discovery of calculus by Leibniz and Newton. Newton invented/discovered it a full 15 years after Leibniz but he was unaware of the formers work when he published his own findings. Here too I would say they came up with original works.

Of course, in the case of mathematics or technology, where there is pretty much only “one possible way” originality is not a very hard criterion to make.

Since we are biological creatures, i.e. part of nature as much as the earthworm is, we have only a limited set of sounds available to us — vast but finite. (For example we cannot hear or voice ultrasound frequencies.) Keeping narrowly to our vocal abilities, we do come up with sentences that are “original” in the sense I defined: sentences that, to your knowledge at least, have never been used before. The kind that have our English teachers burst an artery, for instance

In fact, I can give you a pretty concrete example of pure originality. Just look up the Wikipedia article for “Nicaraguan Sign Language”. It is a case where deaf and dumb children who had not been exposed to any language have, in the course of around 30 years, developed a new language. They’ve invented it, in fact. Here, children invented the language, developed it and honed it in waves. The younger children did better than the older ones.

When I referred to your blogging, I was pointing out that you _have_ written a lot (3 years at least, by the looks of it), and in these writings there is a lot that is original in the broader sense. Also, I’m willing to wager that no sentence in your writings will be the same as a sentence in, say, G. B. Shaw’s writings; or a peer of yours: a fellow Tamilian, Chennai-ite blogger unless you were explicitly quoting this person. That’s remarkable originality there.

in your previous comments i read that you’d mentioned
‘How can you make these claims when you haven’t learnt them anywhere?’
my response abt bloggers was to that…

>>The word is obviously original.

Dhoda! whats the benchmark i still dont know.

To be honest I’m more confused abt originality now. Your argument on music and IR and beethoven has again taken things to square one..

And yes I’m completely, absolutely ignorant about harry potter universe.

thanks for the link..

btw innate skills kum originality kum enna sambandam??
will read this at leisure and find out

Probably i’ll write a post on this at a later day when i have some more gyaan and more imptly time..

I will remember to give you credit for opening my eyes, if my ideas change in the meanwhile

Neither did I say you were an idiot. Garry Kasparov is an undeniably intelligent man yet he is, I am sure, ignorant about the latest findings in, say, nuclear physics; he is even more ignorant about Tamil literature (don’t you wonder why he wouldn’t appreciate the nuances of Tholkapiyam?). Ignorance does not imply lack of intelligence.

I think you’ll agree with me that there is no point discussing things with an idiot. That I continue to discuss this with you, I think, proves that I don’t think you’re an idiot. (Of course, if I’m an idiot, then the argument collapses on me. Though it is hard to find an objective meaning for idiot.)

Quidditch. I see you are ignorant about the Harry Potter universe J. K. Rowling has invented the word “Muggle” which has made into the OED (hint: you are one). The word is obviously original. As is Quidditch, btw. As a reductionist you will probably reduce it to a partial sum of it’s parts. (A process which involves some degree of originality, I might add since you must pick and choose the components to include and exclude.)

I am surprised at your interpretation of Quidditch as “kiddish”. If I gave you the German word “baum” would you associate it with the near phonetic equivalent in English: “balm”? That is very curious since the word translates to “tree”.

I respect bloggers and admire them too. As mentioned earlier, I cannot write as well as you do and neither can I keep at it consistently.

If you are interested in some innate abilities among humans, you could read http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bloom07/bloom07_index.html

Great fans of Illayaraja can identify any song of his by listening to any piece of any nearly every song of his. If none of them were original, this would not be possible. If all songs were, as you claim, unoriginal plagiarisms off “earlier” works (was the first one original?), then why _doesn’t_ the lay person in the streets of Chennai appreciate Beethoven as much as IR? How is it that one can clearly identify some songs as belonging to IR’s 80s collection, some as belonging to ARR’s first 5 years and so on, if there is no originality or uniqueness to their style?

After 4 comments you have at last ventued to give one definition. It has not sunk in to me as yet (as you claim, i’m being naive and ignorant and its a fact) it may at a later date. nothing is etched in stone..
i’ve adopted Ideas which i felt stupid during my earlier days…the same can happen here too..
but right now your definition does not make sense to me..

“quiddich” - since you have not heard of it so its original?

I think it sounds more like kiddish (which i’ve heard before) and its only a minor variant of it…

what sounds original to you may not be so original to me.. or to some other person.. so who is the yardstick?? you?

I remember Ilayaraja once said that ‘isai naave eemathura velai dhaan’

if IR can say that, it just made me think longer and harder about it..

bloggers have questions and some opinions - some objective and some not so objective… its just that we post it in our blog..
that does not mean we are authoritative in that subject unless we explicitly proclaim tobe so…
“why do you write’ nu kekuradhu ellam waste…
.. we post just like the way you comment that does not make us experts in something..nor does it mean we are idiots.
i think the reality is we are somewhere between the two..

Thanks for responding and I will be going to another post.

My apologies. I did not mean offense when I said you were ignorant. You are. That is just fact. My mistake that I didn’t write it out clearly that I did not mean it as an insult.

Once again you take your naive reductionist approach. I fail to see the point in “creating my own language”. Would you ask someone to compose music in ultrasound frequencies?

I do not have a blog since I cannot write as well as yourself. It is curious that you do not deem your own comment space worthy of reading. However I have told you, except not in my blog.

I have given several examples of the innate human ability to speak. You have not answered why other species fail at the same task. I have revealed your ignorance with regards to copyrights and Open Source Software licensing. These are places you could begin to read about, if nothing else. Of course, none of this is necessary in the least. But to make the claims you make, without “learn[ing] by painstaking repetition” and then to attribute them to a lack of “originality” is curious.

Another very simple point of beginning is to ask yourself about your own reductionist approach. Is music the sum of its individual notes or more? Is a word the concatenation of alphabets or more? Is a sentence the mere sequencing of many words?

I realize I did not make myself entirely clear on the topic of originality. When I mean original, I mean something that you have not encountered before. Your view seems to be something nobody has ever seen before. But even if we take your definition, I am not convinced it is correct, however it seems prudent if I point out the difference in our thinking. Perhaps then we may find common ground.

Continuing, to me a word is original if it has not been encountered earlier by me. Thus, the word “Quiddich” is original. A previously unencountered sentence is original. Likewise with music. (Plagiarism does not enter here.)

So, if I encounter a sentence that I have not read or heard elsewhere or write a sentence I have not used earlier, it is original. You may ask yourself about this. Do you think about which (previously encountered) word you must use when forming a sentence? Are you analyzing current choices at some stage in the middle of a sentence?

>>Copy adichittu, ‘naan daan copy adichen’ nu sonna examiner mark poduvaana? illa university daan MBA kudukkuma…

“nalla” university a paarthu serndha, copy ellam adichu kasta pada venaam, avangale
eludhi thiruthi mark pottu pass pannniduvaanga
konjam investment reqd

school time 7th, 8th la adichirukken.. pakathile irukara payyan kitte keetu eludharadhu.. aprom ennamo konjam kevalama irundhudhu..
adhila irundhu panradhu illai

having said that, Copy adichittu, ‘naan daan copy adichen’ nu sonna examiner mark poduvaana? illa university daan MBA kudukkuma…

btw, have you copied in the examination PK? if so, have you accepted that you have copied to the examiner or invigilator ?

Since i have some work i’ll ignore you for now..
btw why dont u start writing in a langauge created originally by you..
you can have the entire copyrights for that language.. i promise
and whats more you can communicate with the entire universe which is anyway behind you in this effort

we have argued from dogs to apes to music to language to whatever..

merely arguing for the sake of arguing does not take you anywhere my friend
if you think you know better than me, pls. write a detailed explanation in your blog and … that way i would also know more.. and someone more knowledgeble than you and me will give his/her gyaan too..

Ridiculing me does not take anybody anwhere..

BTW this is what i found under Wikipaedia

>>Important note: The Wikimedia Foundation does not own copyright on Wikipedia article texts and illustrations. It is therefore useless to email our contact addresses asking for permission to reproduce content. Permission to reproduce content under the license and technical conditions applicable to Wikipedia (see below and Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks) has already been granted to everyone without request;

Bottomline: you have to tell me - in your blog, if any that is..

Your example has nothing to do with “my take on music”. I merely said such ordered borrowing from several tunes into another would be plagiarism, not an original work.

“Going by your logic, can you explain why the average guy on the roads of Chennai does not” speak Swahili “whilst he” speaks Tamil?

“If” language “is after all such a universal thing, pls. try that to a guy who is not familiar with” Tamil (Coimbatore or Chennai dialect). “Will he” understand Kovai Sarala “or” Manorama “or” Yu Yamada? “If not, why not?”

I never implied that it was shameful to “have a very broad definition of learning”, it does indicate that the usage of “learning” then has no substance. If you associate the things that a child does merely by observation of people around it and then goes on to speak fully formed sentences with “learning” then the word is meaningless (and it means you agree with me). Note that this is the exact opposite of “employ[ing] what [I] have learned by painstaking repetition, review tiral and error etc.”

I have never claimed that “everything is original”. If you notice, I give some very clear examples of what constites plagiarism.

A further misunderstanding on your part regards, funnily enough, “Open Source”. Open Source Software cannot exist _without_ copyright. If you take a look at their website, you will notice that the Open Source License is a _Copyright License_. Thus Free Software and Open Source Software licenses strengthen my argument.

I do not think your “ideas” are “funny”. Merely naive and ignorant.

If nothing is original, what was the caveman’s equivalent to the Internet?

IIRC, Police dogs usually have their throat pipes operated upon so they cannot bark. Even otherwise, behavioral differences have been observed between different breeds of the dog species. So it is far from obvious that your police dog and street dog. Incidentally, I give up and would like to know the answer: “why dogs always bark no matter how hard we attempt to make [them] talk”?

BTW, what does OTFG mean?