Working definition. An idea is not merely a thought or topic. It is a relation made thinkable—a form that can travel between minds and reorganise attention or action.
Inherited meaning
Philosophy has treated ideas as eternal forms, mental representations, concepts, and instruments for inquiry. Creative practice knows them as generative centres: a strong idea produces coherent consequences across many expressions without prescribing every detail.
Meaning in the imagination economy
AI can produce innumerable proposals that resemble ideas. The distinction appears in consequence: an idea changes the field, while a variation rearranges familiar material inside it. In the imagination economy, ideas become valuable when they open a direction others can question, develop, and inhabit.
What changes in practice
State the new relation in one sentence. Test whether it generates implications beyond a single artifact, survives translation into another medium, and gives others something they can extend rather than merely admire.