Ideation is relational

That ideas are not stand-alone elements of thought but relational, and ideators act not on their own but with others, seem reasonable. Yet the notion that all properties, or "entities", “attributes”, “qualities”, “features”, “characteristics”, or “types" and their agents are relational is not without debate although central to the western philosophical tradition. Plato called them “ideas” or “forms”, and viewed them as universals, in contrast with particulars or individuals. The Sophist, written by Plato in 360 BC, contains the following phrase: “Anything which possesses any sort of power to affect another, or to be affected by another, if only for a single moment, however trifling the cause and however slight the effect, has real existence; and I hold that the definition of being is simply action". And in the eastern tradition, the Buddhist philosopher Nāgārjuna’s central notion of “emptiness” tells us that nothing has independent existence: anything that exists, exists thanks to, as a function of, or according to the perspective of, something else. Furthermore, in the material world, we know that a chemical substance is defined by how it reacts, a biological species is defined according to the niche it occupies in the biosphere, and what defines us as human beings is our relationships. Moreover, atoms, as quantum physics show are defined by their physical interactions with the rest of the world. This suggests that reality is not a collection of things but a network of processes. If so, ideation, as part of the design process, and ideas, as outcomes of this process, can be described in terms of relationships and interactions. This further suggests that winning ideators are those who collaborate. Too often we measure success in terms of a single ideator's fortunes. However, prioritising individual ideas over the common good might prevents us from addressing the true challenges that face the world today. (Adapted from, and added to) Source: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/sep/05/the-big-idea-why-relationships-are-the-key-to-existence