Can we steal ideas from the past?
In most cases, we can't understand how people create masterpieces. Because we think that is magic. We think that people are going on the street and ideas come into their heads. We call them geniuses.
That is why some people try to copy their actions to get the same result.
I remember when I was at a business conference with a famous entrepreneur and one interior designer asked him a question: “What do you do for inspiration?” She thought if she coped with his actions she could be inspired like him and create something amazing like him.
Copy of actions is not enough. We need to copy a mindset. Copy this flow of thoughts that allows our brain to create great ideas. If you want to have a manufacturing like Ford, you can’t just copy drawings of the car. You must copy the flow of manufacturing and designing.
I came up with this idea after watching the Dune movie and decided to create this essay. How did Frank Garber come up with the Dune idea?
Dune
I hope you watched a Dune movie and know something about the plot
The main events are going between two great houses in the galaxy. House Atreides and House Harkonnen. These two houses fight to control the desert planet Arrakis which plays the main role in Galaxe because of The Spice.
Spice is the main resource in the galaxy that is used as fuel for intergalactic movements. Without spice, any Great House can’t survive. Who controls Arrakis - control transport in the galaxy.
Frank Herbert wrote Dune in the 1960s. It was a time of Cold War between the USA and the Soviet Union. In Dune I see a lot of parallels with the Cold War, but it is my personal observation. Maybe the original story of the Dune creation is different.
Let's look at how great houses look.
Atreides - Smart, intelligent, kind, individual with a good taste.
That is why some people try to copy their actions to get the same result.
I remember when I was at a business conference with a famous entrepreneur and one interior designer asked him a question: “What do you do for inspiration?” She thought if she coped with his actions she could be inspired like him and create something amazing like him.
Copy of actions is not enough. We need to copy a mindset. Copy this flow of thoughts that allows our brain to create great ideas. If you want to have a manufacturing like Ford, you can’t just copy drawings of the car. You must copy the flow of manufacturing and designing.
I came up with this idea after watching the Dune movie and decided to create this essay. How did Frank Garber come up with the Dune idea?
Dune
I hope you watched a Dune movie and know something about the plot
The main events are going between two great houses in the galaxy. House Atreides and House Harkonnen. These two houses fight to control the desert planet Arrakis which plays the main role in Galaxe because of The Spice.
Spice is the main resource in the galaxy that is used as fuel for intergalactic movements. Without spice, any Great House can’t survive. Who controls Arrakis - control transport in the galaxy.
Frank Herbert wrote Dune in the 1960s. It was a time of Cold War between the USA and the Soviet Union. In Dune I see a lot of parallels with the Cold War, but it is my personal observation. Maybe the original story of the Dune creation is different.
Let's look at how great houses look.
Atreides - Smart, intelligent, kind, individual with a good taste.
Harkonnen - ugly, no different from each other, cruel, evil and vile. The red color of the flag
The leader of Harkonnen - Vladimir Harkonnen, in all pictures looks like Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of the USSR in the '60s
We can easily figure out who is who.
So what did Frank Herbert do?
He just transferred real politics into space. He changed the names of countries to the names of the great houses and moved the place of events from our planet to space.
In Dune the war is because of “spice”.
The main resource today is petroleum. Where is the most oil? Middle East.
Arabian territories look like deserts.
So Planet Arrakies is a “Middle East” and The Spice is “Petroleum”.
On Arrakies, we have an “independent” nation - Fremen that looks like Arabians.
So what did Frank Herbert do?
He just transferred real politics into space. He changed the names of countries to the names of the great houses and moved the place of events from our planet to space.
In Dune the war is because of “spice”.
The main resource today is petroleum. Where is the most oil? Middle East.
Arabian territories look like deserts.
So Planet Arrakies is a “Middle East” and The Spice is “Petroleum”.
On Arrakies, we have an “independent” nation - Fremen that looks like Arabians.
“Arabians” fight with occupants to be free.
Any good story has to have a leader who experiences a transformation. In Dune it is Paul Atreides, who becomes a Paul Muad'Dib and later The Preacher.
Any good story has to have a leader who experiences a transformation. In Dune it is Paul Atreides, who becomes a Paul Muad'Dib and later The Preacher.
This reminds me of the story of Moses, who led the Jews through the desert for 40 years from Egypt to Israel.
In the Dune novel, we can see a clear technic of inspiration.
It is transferring historical events into other territories and times. To get a sense of the scale of events you can make things bigger.
In reality, actions were on one planet (The Earth) - In Dune action goes on different planets. All parts become bigger. Aircraft become spaceships and combines become big desert harvesters.
By learning the history of something, we get a foundation, the raw materials. When we ask ourselves “How will it be in the next 1000 years?” our brain triggers the generation of new ideas. If you don't have a piece of knowledge about the past, your brain doesn't have raw materials for big ideas. Your brain has to lean on something, to have a starting point.
Thinking about new ideas without history knowledge (or your experience) is like trying to create a building without bricks.
When I was in my first year in Architectural Academy we had a class where we needed to copy ancient Greek architecture. After was a class where we needed to create something new, something unique. The funny story is that we liked the ancient Greek style and decided to create something using classical columns. At that point, we thought that our ideas were genius and unique. The key point was that we didn’t know anything else back then and ancient Greek architecture was only one style in our “Libary of Ideas”.
Of course, with time we learned more about modernism, started to copy modern houses, and created our own projects in the modernist style.
The idea of this story is that for us “classic Greek architecture” was the raw material, foundation, and starting point to create something ours.
Another part is when you don't stimulate your brain to create ideas, even if you have massive knowledge.
It is like having a pile of bricks and not trying to build something. Your knowledge has inflation.
That is why a lot of people have a lot of historical data (knowledge and experience), but they don't stimulate the brain to create something new.
So, writing this essay I figured out that for greater ideas we need to learn “how it was” and ask questions about “how it can be in the future?”.
The past gives us the raw materials, the foundation of this topic. The question about the future stimulates our brains to generate new ideas using raw materials (information from the past, historical data, your experience, etc.)
In the Dune novel, we can see a clear technic of inspiration.
It is transferring historical events into other territories and times. To get a sense of the scale of events you can make things bigger.
In reality, actions were on one planet (The Earth) - In Dune action goes on different planets. All parts become bigger. Aircraft become spaceships and combines become big desert harvesters.
By learning the history of something, we get a foundation, the raw materials. When we ask ourselves “How will it be in the next 1000 years?” our brain triggers the generation of new ideas. If you don't have a piece of knowledge about the past, your brain doesn't have raw materials for big ideas. Your brain has to lean on something, to have a starting point.
Thinking about new ideas without history knowledge (or your experience) is like trying to create a building without bricks.
When I was in my first year in Architectural Academy we had a class where we needed to copy ancient Greek architecture. After was a class where we needed to create something new, something unique. The funny story is that we liked the ancient Greek style and decided to create something using classical columns. At that point, we thought that our ideas were genius and unique. The key point was that we didn’t know anything else back then and ancient Greek architecture was only one style in our “Libary of Ideas”.
Of course, with time we learned more about modernism, started to copy modern houses, and created our own projects in the modernist style.
The idea of this story is that for us “classic Greek architecture” was the raw material, foundation, and starting point to create something ours.
Another part is when you don't stimulate your brain to create ideas, even if you have massive knowledge.
It is like having a pile of bricks and not trying to build something. Your knowledge has inflation.
That is why a lot of people have a lot of historical data (knowledge and experience), but they don't stimulate the brain to create something new.
So, writing this essay I figured out that for greater ideas we need to learn “how it was” and ask questions about “how it can be in the future?”.
The past gives us the raw materials, the foundation of this topic. The question about the future stimulates our brains to generate new ideas using raw materials (information from the past, historical data, your experience, etc.)
April, 2024