Originality A Myth Or Reality?

Do we have any original concept and original research in the world?

I have lately been intellectually challenged by ‘elusive concept of original concept’ and I knew that I had to confront it as I feel literary dogged by it. Cudgeling ended in coming up with a definition: ‘originality is giving birth to an idea that owes its existence solely to a creative stroke of genius of the author of its being and must be so novel that its spread needs many new coinages’. I was puffed up with self importance; after all I had become the original author of the definition of originality; but self congratulatory round of applause could not follow my surmounting as joy of triumph was so short lived that I felt that it had hurried past me. It occurred to me before long that I had formed the definition of the ‘originality of supreme form’ but originality as I was aware could be found in the lower forms as well. Originality can also be seeing something more to a topic or novelty of interpretation of topic well exhausted or otherwise so to add a new or different dimension to it so that people see something new to concept or see concept differently.

We often talk of originality and almost always we mean by it the originality of supreme form; but we never realize that much of what we have is because of originality of lower forms. Is originality of supreme form the Holy Grail? There can be an answer even I don’t know the answer and I admit that I have not known the answer so far; but now I feel I can respond to the question. I guess it is. How come then we have work of art imbued with originality of supreme work? Answer is: ‘Because humans acquire the originality of supreme form with out their efforts’. We must understand so that we do not grow self deprecating to all contribution we have made so far to various disciplines of knowledge that creativity of ours is the outcome of fostering our ordinary skills to more than ordinary degree. Cognitive abilities of ours are circumscribed by natural limitations; we human can produce through unaided efforts unadulterated food or unalloyed metal but originality that is free from a taint of similarity (concept that is so novel that it contains no resemblance to any concept produced so far and it, therefore, needs coinages) is a divine gift and comes only in a flash of inspiration.

Same goes with originality of research as well. There are two kinds of research as I have understood; one that is variation on theme and other that is variation of theme. In first kind; three researchers, for example, approach the work of poet lets suppose Milton or Iqbal with different objectives. Researcher A is devoted to finding political dimension; researcher B focuses on philosophical aspect and researcher C evaluates romantic appeal. Research of these three researchers will be an excellent example of a paradox ‘same but different’. Researches are same in a sense that all three researchers examine the same thing and different in a sense that they differ in purpose of analysis. As many of concepts used by these two poets are inextricably intertwined and can not be explored in isolation; therefore there will be a great deal of similarity in terms of concepts in these three different researches but each research will delve deeply into the area of its major concern and that will make all three different from each other. As diction is dictated by subject and if concepts are similar so there will be a similarity in terms of words as well. These three researches despite both similarities (of concept and words) will however be termed original.     

Research that is variation of theme is of two kinds. In first kind researcher A examines the novel of an author, and researcher B examines the poetry one poet. Novel and poetry are two different genres of literature. They are different because one interprets phenomena in prose and other in poetry but similar in a sense that both belong to literature and this similarity does have a certain impact on expression and diction. Similarity between these two different genres grow greater if poet in his poetry and writer in his novel highlight the problem of poverty and as both  deals with same issue so many more words (in this case) used in novel and used in poetry are bound to be similar. These both similarities (of subject and words) however, can not cast doubt on the originality of an author and a poet. Now two researches one examining the poetry and other novel tend to reflect the similarity novel and poetry shares but despite these similarities both researches are original.   

Other kind of variation of theme is when one researcher works in the domain of electronics and other probes the realm of economy.  Chances of any element of similarity in such case are extremely rare though knowledge as is inseparable so there may be any element of similarity if two distinct disciplines converge at any point. (One researcher stands on the shoulder of other researcher, therefore; research that succeeds in both domain respectively must resemble the research that precedes it.)  

Original research in absolute terms is a myth.

(Remarks in my blog on witty conclusion with funny logic were really galvanic; and I owe Mr Zulfiqar a debt of gratitude for being instrumental in provoking ideas for this article. I briefly comment on his counter comments, hoping that an article of mine will make it easier for him to understand my point.

A logical fallacy is false logical principle because of not being an example of equivalence; arguments though follow a certain basic structure and take one or more premises, which are facts, for granted as the starting point. When metaphor/analogy is extended to the point of absurdity it produces fun but it is not the case with every fallacy; for example, it does not happen in watchmaker or rhetorical fallacy.

My originality lies in categorization and in two coinages ‘comical fallacies (I will post soon) and ‘witty conclusion with funny logic’

Fallacies in which flaw is disguised in the assumptions of analogy are invalidated fallacies as focus on hypothetical scenario fails at subtle level. I term such fallacies logical fallacies. (Almost no fun is produced in logical fallacies)

Comical fallacies produce but fun but not necessarily in conclusion as it is the case with ‘witty logic with funny conclusion’.

Content analysis of thousands of fallacies created by hundreds of scholar will reveal a common thread running through. All fallacies will be same but different (because they all are fallacies); but none of scholar will forfeit his claim on originality because of the reason that the fallacies of his have certain words and concepts similar to those used in thousands of other fallacies.)