I disagree...( sorry if I am doing that a lot these days )....
The creative qualities of the human mind are infinite and even although everything seems to have been thought up or discovered...it hasn't !
Even in Biology and medicine discoveries are being made every day that were not known before in any way !
Indeed we are constantly coming up with new discoveries and ideas, but they all either borrow from existing ideas, or are discovered using existing principles. For example, we can't find a cure for cancer knowing nothing about it--hence such a cure would have to be based on existing research at least partially.
Originally posted by Phoenix
But biology is not an original idea - the things are already there, waitning to be discovered
Of course Biology or Medicine are not original ideas but within these frameworks new thoughts and discoveries are being made all the time.
Yes...I will agree that old discoveries can lead to new discoveries but any NEW discovery is still NEW if it has not been discovered before.
Original thought is only restricted by the numbers of ways that the neurons and axions in the human brain can be connected. These possible connections are almost infinitesimal.
That throwaway comment is probably the most profound reason why many new ideas and inventions never see daylight.
If you do have a new or original idea then if you want to let it out to the world you are going to have to take out hundreds of very expensive world patents in order to protect this idea.
If you don't protect your discovery people will be very quick to steal it and call it their own.
I remember a talk at uni about the structure of fiction, and it was claimed that there are a finite number of plots, however there is a lot of ways to developer the finite plots, ergo there is plenty of ways to make something seem original, even though in a way it is limited. But yes and no. Yes, much of what we do is built upon and adapted from things that exist already, but never the less I think there are at least some original ideas remaining, some yet to be discovered. But are there infinite original ideas? Infinite things are rare, and looking at humanity, I somehow doubt it.