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The First Solution
Ideally, we would begin our adventure by first writing down the question to which we seek the answer. This time, it was closer to the conclusion when I was first able to formulate the problem - this world was created by looking at it retrospectively.
Is it possible to exhaust all ideas?
We will solve this problem in two ways: first, by building a world, a chessboard where we will move the pieces to see where the game brings us, and then - by setting up a little experiment, which, of course, will involve making trips to new and exciting destinations. And so, before I go out into the field and start doing what I am best at - looking for trouble and then gracefully getting out of it, let us tackle this problem by going on an adventure inside our minds.
Let us start by making the question more specific, as the word "exhaust" is too broad for our use case. We will replace it with the phrase - turning into an art piece - which we will define as bringing something that previously existed solely in one's mind into the world. We will also substitute the word "all" for the same reason.
Is it possible to turn every single idea into an art piece?
Next, we need to explain the terms that make up the question. The three most important ones are:
Idea
Art piece
Turning an idea into an art piece
In our context, an idea is the manifestation of the creative nature of the human mind. It is born out of nothing, freely and precisely the way its creator intends. However, an idea can only be thought of and not observed directly.
On the other hand, an art piece is an entity that - unlike an idea - exists outside the mind and can be observed. The observation process, however, is random, which allows different observations of an art piece by the same or distinct actors to yield different outcomes.
Turning an idea into an art piece makes the former observable. This process is irreversible: it is impossible to reassemble the original using one or multiple art pieces.
Finally, we will also define observation as a quality of the mind that gives its possessor the option to alter his idea creation process by interacting with art pieces. While the process of observation itself is outside of the free creative mind and is therefore uncontrollable, the way its results are applied gets governed by the same mechanism as the creation of ideas.
We now have all the information we need, so let us rephrase the question one last time.
How can we turn every single idea into an art piece?
First, let us examine the problem by looking at it from the perspective of a single mind.
What if we say that ideas one can think of are limited to a certain number? Then, however high this number is, if the mind keeps producing new ones, it will deplete its resources in a finite time. This interpretation goes against our definition of an idea as it limits the freedom of the mind when it wishes to create an idea it has not made before.
Let us instead say that after a certain point, any further idea, whether created by the same or different minds, will overlap with an already existing one. By making this assumption, we face another problem: it is impossible to decide whether two ideas are the same or not, as neither of them can be observed in their pure form to make the comparison.
Therefore, we can say that it is not possible or meaningful to limit the number of ideas, whether applied to a single mind or across multiple ones. Let us now look at the problem through the prism of art pieces.
Just like with ideas, we cannot directly compare those - the only way to do so is indirect, by comparing the observations we make of them. It is also only possible to compare ones made by the same observer, as communication between multiple actors would require them to create, manifest, and examine new ideas, contaminating the information with the randomness of the respective processes.
For the same reason, we lose the ability to judge whether two observations yielded the same result due to their subject being the same or simply by chance, even though distinct art pieces might have gotten observed.
Lastly, even if observations were fully deterministic, it would not be possible to map those back into the ideas that the art pieces in question came from due to the irreversible nature of the creation of the former. And so we are finally left unable to achieve our goal of turning every idea into an art piece.
We cannot exhaust all ideas.
Going on this imaginary adventure was fun, but it was not nearly enough to satisfy my creative craving. It is time to go on a real adventure.
