I see where you are coming from and I get that your argument is that new ideas are (?often) extension of existing ones but I think this is a bit of an oversimplification. It seems like everything can be described as an abstraction of something else on a larger/smaller scale. Which philosophically would mean that the universe as a whole has the same value as any atom or quarks within it.
But even if we ignore the philosophical aspect of it, it seems a bit like Duell's "Everything that can be invented has been invented" statement from late 19-th/early 20-th century. A statement which hasn't aged too well for better or worse.
> I think this is a bit of an oversimplification. It seems like everything can be described as an abstraction of something else
Correct, any new ideas you abstract are composed of pre-existing ideas you have. Trace any of those ideas to their roots and you'll realize all ideas come from what you originally had to subject your senses to (i.e seeing it, hearing it), otherwise they're some abstracted combination thereof.
Although my prior post was an attempt at a logical proof of sorts, the only real caveat I find in it, is this part: if there's a limit to what we can sense and observe. This is not proven as far I can tell (which is why I prefaced it with an 'if').
Again, I think Ludwig Wittgenstein's work may say all of this better, but then again I find it hard to grasp everything it tries to convey.
EDIT: As for Duell's statement, perhaps it's taken too literally. I can see they had an equivalent to email (e.g. regular mail), atom bombs (regular bombs) and AI (basic schemes & algorithms) back in those days, just not literal equivalents. But his statement is not the argument I'm making in my prior post. Rather it's more "our ideas are limited by what we sense".
But even if we ignore the philosophical aspect of it, it seems a bit like Duell's "Everything that can be invented has been invented" statement from late 19-th/early 20-th century. A statement which hasn't aged too well for better or worse.