This question’s answers will veer into “no true scotsman” debates because how can I express thoughts except through language learned from others? How can I make art without being influenced by the world I inhabit?

Counter point: Is human existence unique and separate from the universe we live in? If you can influence someone's thoughts by changing their brain chemistry then how separate from our surroundings are we?

If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.

Humans don't exist in a vacuum, even if we think something is wholly our own, original idea, it likely pulled in stuff we don't even know it pulled in. This doesn't take away from the individual contribution of that inventor. There are lots of people who will see something and not think anything special about it. But, sometimes the right person sees the right thing and it kicks off a series of connections in their brain and they come up with something novel. But for that particular person's unique set of experiences, that novel thing may not have been created.

If you invented something unique your first problem is going to be describing it to yourself. You'll need new nomenclature. The second problem is describing the unique thing to someone else.

One could argue that anything that can be nailed down by language cannot be unique because the metaphors and phrases to describe it preexisted.

How does one form thoughts without attaching them to something else in their brain? You can't have ideas about something without it being in reference to something else, or else you couldn't possibly understand your own idea.

Everything is a remix. https://youtu.be/nJPERZDfyWc

I think the problem is (ironically) exacerbated by lacking better language to describe things. Einstein was trying to describe the world, not come up with something new. I think that does involve “creativity,” but I’d argue that it’s not the same impulse.

Children absolutely come up with things that don’t seem to have any relation to what they’ve experienced, but it’s not useful creativity, like what Einstein possessed.

This comment somehow feels insulting to both Einstein and children, but I don’t mean it like that.

Everything has to come from experience I think, but it doesn't always feel like that. I know some songwriters say it's like a fountain they cannot turn off, coming from somewhere else. Often when I have a problem I am stuck on, letting it go and sleeping works, I can wake up knowing things I didn't know when I fell asleep.

Things coming from experience doesn't rule out original, unique or novel ideas at all, though.

Whoever invented the internet seems to have succeeded in this.