Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2012 December 4

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December 4

Original idea

i asked yesterday at entertainment desk if there is any song or movies that can be considered as original. This thought came when i was watching 'everything is a remix' in youtube. My question now is, is it possible to have an original idea in our time?

Now im asking here in misc because im interested to get answers from all kinds of field. 203.112.82.129 (talk) 15:55, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

It's Miscellaneous not Misc,hehe,also noting is new my dear thing,it's just that people forgot old so they get all "YEY!" when something old is made new not knowing it's old.74.178.177.48 (talk) 16:02, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Of course it's possible to have an original idea, and most movies and songs have at least one or two original features. However, the nature of language itself is such that it is impossible to be completely original. You have to use already existing building blocks. Many movies and songs use rather large building blocks incorporating a number of previously used motifs. Still, the way in which the building blocks are combined is usually at least partly original. Marco polo (talk) 16:45, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

You might be interested in Neal Stephenson's notion of a "Lorite" from his book Anathem — they are basically scholars who exist (in his fictional universe) to refute any idea of true novelty, finding the places where seemingly new ideas are derived from old, with the idea of saving everyone some time.

In terms of raw practicality, it depends on what one means by "original" or "novel", as well as how encompassing a definition of "idea" there is. Does it mean, "has never been thought of by another human being before, ever"? It's impossible to really know that, for sure. Does it mean, "hasn't otherwise been published?" That can at least be verified, but leads us into interrogating what one means by "idea". Does it have to have zero connection to anything else in human culture? That's probably too high a bar to actually use, and it would be hard to imagine what sort of cultural product we'd be able to understand that truly was divorced from human culture. Once we start lowering that bar, we start seeing everything as being in some way connected — there are only so many narratives, so many themes, for example. Where you place that bar will depend on what the point of putting such a bar up in the first place is. The US Copyright Office and the US Patent Office have very specific sets of requirements for what "originality" means, because they are trying serve a specific economic ends. If the goal is to show everything is derivative to some degree, that is a trivial-enough thing to do — the question is, what's the point in doing so? --Mr.98 (talk) 16:49, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Apparently not. Christopher Booker wrote about The Seven Basic Plots. Other's have written about a different fixed number of movie plots, with the same conclusion that it's all been seen before. Astronaut (talk) 19:11, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

The problem is that it's a matter of degree. If you simplify enough, you can get from seven plots to just one: "Things happen to the characters". If you go into enough detail, then any movie can be said to differ from those seven plots. Take "Lord of the Rings" - it could be said to be Frodo versus Sauron ("Overcoming the Monster") - but it's really several heroes taking their own paths and finally helping Frodo to do that. To simplify that plot to "Frodo gets the ring, chucks it into the volcano, resulting in Sauron being eliminated" is to miss 80% of the movie about the wars and the overthrow of kings and so forth. It's easy to find movies that don't fit into any of those seven plots. What about a movie like "Primer"...try to wedge that plot into any of the seven and you'll find it doesn't fit into any of them. Then you can take two movies like "The Seven Samurai" and "The Magnificent Seven" and decide that at some level, they are totally identical - but at some other level, taking a story about samurai and transcribing it into the Wild West was probably quite original at the time. Taken at some level of detail, even highly derivative movies have SOMETHING new in them - taken at some other level of detail, all movies are exactly the same. Where along that spectrum you decide that there is "enough" detail is what determines the answer to the OP's question.

With music, you can have two songs ("Twinkle twinkle little star" and "The Alphabet Song") that have identical music - but are clearly different...or one song (the Xmas carol, "Away in a Manger") which is performed to two totally different pieces of music - but have the same exact words. So neither the words nor the music can be said to constitute "different" or "the same". Ditto books, paintings, plays, sculpture, etc. SteveBaker (talk) 18:12, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

That's right. I'm a great lover of the big picture, but I'm aware that if one steps back too far, one ends up saying "There is only one thing of any importance - the universe. Everything in it is just relatively trivial detail". And that wouldn't exactly be a very useful approach to anything much. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 01:16, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

origin of benji canines

Benji

I have a Poodle mix benji dog. Would like to know origin of the benji. — Preceding unsigned comment added by FreCla (talk • contribs) 17:03, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Do you mean basenji? --TammyMoet (talk) 17:35, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Most likely Benji (a movie star dog). Looie496 (talk) 19:15, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

The dog, Higgins, was a mutt, believed to be a mix of Miniature Poodle, Cocker Spaniel, and Schnauzer, originally appearing on Petticoat Junction. After the success in the movie Benji, they trained his offspring, in order to perpetuate that look for the sequels, as the original dog was getting rather old (and died soon after). StuRat (talk) 00:29, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Governor General of Canada

Please do not double post questions
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I sent an e-mail to the office of the Governor General of Canada and I received an automatic response telling me that I will get a response within three weeks. But my worries come about after I saw the calendar and figured out that part of the three weeks fall into the winter break. Do those government agencies have personnel during the break? Thank you I would appreciate your help. Keeeith (talk) 22:41, 4 December 2012 (UTC) You already asked this question at the Humanities desk. Please do not double post questions. -- Jack of Oz [Talk] 22:57, 4 December 2012 (UTC)