Thinking about ideas is the occupation of an entire branch of philosophy. So I don't think I'm going to solve anything here. But I wanted to outline an interesting, possibly fundamental, conundrum related to ideas. Namely, who do they belong to and how are they to be used?
As I see it, there are a few possibilities. One, that your idea belongs to you, and you deserve complete ownership of it. Another is that it belongs to the world and is your responsibility to bring about. Or it could be somewhere in between. If it belongs to the world, is it your duty to selflessly fork it over, or is the world to be grateful to you for your contribution? This responsibility direction runs toward theological or collectivist notions of society, in which the individual is subordinate to more over-arching concerns. Conversely, the ownership direction heads toward Nietzsche, Ayn Rand and libertarianism, which can lead to extreme solipsism. The discussion of selfishness versus compassion is best left to another forum.
But my question for myself is, if something occurs to me, do I have a responsibility to share it freely? Can I keep it to myself and demand payment for sharing part of the idea with another person? If I share it without demand, should I feel slighted if I don't receive a standing ovation?
Can something I think of even be considered an original thought? After all, I am working with concepts that have all been well established over thousands of years of cultural progression. How many combinations of concepts can be said to come anywhere near a novel idea? And how many supposedly novel ideas can be reduced to combinations of universally available concepts?
When I am combining these ideas in my head, I, as a rule, don't stop to consider where they came from. All my words, and the concepts they represent, have been supplied to me from the world external to myself. On the other hand, it's arguable that the concepts themselves originated within my mind as a reaction to the raw stimuli I have experienced throughout my life. From that perspective, they are certainly my own, as they were generated by me.
Even if the thought is "mine" as just stated, that doesn't dictate whether i have a right to keep it to myself so that no one benefits from any possible advancement. The case could be made that the advancement of knowledge is more important than any one person. At the same time, if anyone is going to profit from an idea, all those involved in it should profit to the greatest extent possible. In a practical sense, if a company is going to make millions on an idea, a portion of that money is due to the person who brought them the idea.
The other side of the coin is often less fraught, as exemplified by open-source programming. In the open source community, experts contribute to the central knowledge base with little expectation of reward, except that the field will grow and users will be helped. They receive accolades from peers and the more knowledgeable members of the community, but the average user will not know who created the thing they are using. Nor will they every directly compensate that person for any of the effort that went into it.
This is the dilemma of selflessness. I said I wouldn't discuss this, but maybe just a little. If you share freely, it is not guaranteed that you will be reimbursed in any way. You could give away your life's work and still not receive in return the minimal resources needed to survive. You can donate your valuable ideas and yet you aren't sure someone else will donate the food, housing or clothes you will need to live your life. This seems an important factor promoting hoarding ideas over sharing them.
When you give something freely, is it right or wrong to expect recognition for the act? When receiving something given freely, what is the proper response, gratitude or entitlement?
If you refrain from freely sharing your idea, how do you then determine the price you can demand for the idea? If no one will meet the price, should you then let the idea die with you, or should you share it for a lesser price? It can be argued that if you don't ever share the idea, eventually it will be encountered again by someone else. Does this near-certainty relieve one of their responsibility to society to share ideas for advancement?
The "Someone else will do it" attitude has allowed many people to refrain from helping their fellows. People have suffered great hardship and loss as a result of all those around them remaining aloof with the same thought. If just one or two of the bystanders had chosen to act, some truly horrible things could have been prevented. Yet the horrible things themselves are not always technically the responsibility of the bystanders (Depraved Indifference being a counter-example under the law).
Does this dilemma between responsibility and aloofness apply to the realm of novel ideas? Can not sharing an idea confer responsibility for calamities it could have prevented? It seems possible to make that argument.
So there appears to be a give-and-take of ideas between the individual and society. Balancing self-preservation with altruism, selfishness with compassion, is ultimately the task of every person. This approaches a fundamental consideration of an individual as it makes its way in a social setting. Perhaps by recognizing the question, we can begin to develop and answer, begin to understand how we fit into the larger world.
No comments:
Post a Comment