
To understand “Cryptomensia” better, let’s imagine this situation. You are scrolling through your phone and come across a new song. While listening to it, you realise that a certain part of the song sounds similar to what you have heard before. What is the first thought that comes to your mind?
The majority would think that the songwriter copied this song. The artist might have heard the xyz song and put a part of it into his own music hoping no one would notice. You might blame them and accuse them of stealing.
But what if the artist actually did it unknowingly? What if the artist had no clue that he re-used a part of a song?
This particular phenomenon is called “Cryptomensia”. This leads us into believing that a particular idea is a result of our own creativity and imagination. But in reality, we had come across the exact idea before but simply forgot.
In the above case of musicians, it isn’t necessary that he/she plans to plagiarise a song. But this might just be a consequence of cryptomensia.
This may happen in our day to day lives as well. Such as while cooking, you may create a “new” recipe but you might have actually seen that idea at some point in time. Or you wish to write a story in your pastime but it unknowingly turns out to be similar to the one you have read ages ago.
There isn’t really a concrete solution to this phenomenon. You can’t possibly rack your brain, every single time a new idea comes, to identify if you had come across this thought before. It’s impossible to do so.
Well this is one such imperfect phenomenon about us, human beings. And that’s okay because being imperfect is what makes us humans!
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