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Originally Posted by Noclevername
It doesn't need to be completely independent of previous experience, just an idea no one's had before.
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But an idea based on previous experience is simply a combination or alteration of previous ideas. And there have only been a finite number of previous ideas, simply because there have only ever been a finite number of people, and we have existed for a finite amount of time. Given that we can only recombine ideas based on previously learned methods, by definition there can only be a finite number of possible idea combinations, and only a finite number of combinations of combinations, combinations of combinations of combinations etc. Any truly new ideas we gain must come from what we learn about the universe. The universe too is finite, and, presumably, is governed by a finite set of laws, and so, by definition, there is only so much one can learn about it. By the time we reach this terminal point, there will effectively be no more future events; the universe will have ceased to tell us anything new. We will only have our finite past to elaborate on, and, eventually, we will have exhausted all possible ideas we could ever have gained from it.
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But the creative capacity of the mind may be infinite.
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That's my point. It isn't. A common misconception (perhaps unavoidable, given the limits of human understanding) is to confuse "infinite" with "unimaginably huge". "Unimaginably huge" is not infinite, any more than a proton is infinite.
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And self-altering minds are capable of unlimited expansion and alteration. They might even edit their memories to avoid boredom, or redesign themselves so that they are incapable of feeling boredom.
Either way, it's better than being dead.
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Being comfortable with nothing is called inertia. Once we have thought about all there is to think about, there will be no more need for thought. Existence without thought it is no different from being dead.