Cryptomnesia is the process by which someone forgets the source of their ideas, and believes those same ideas to be their own, instead of something they read or heard. This is something I notice I do a lot, which is why I try to note down the sources of the various ideas I have while reading things. Not because I think ideas "belong" to people and thus should be attributed to whoever claimed a term or phrase, but because I want to be more self-aware in how much I simply regurgitate other people's ideas, since that same process also inevitably imports some of their assumptions, which I might not agree with.
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2024-12-14