Forging ahead into a problem space without understanding the contributions of others has three possible outcomes:

* Brilliance! You produce something wonderful, un-derivative, and that you otherwise would never have hit upon

* Convergence: you re-invent a wheel. Maybe you re-invent a wheel that was being overlooked, but nevertheless, someone has been here before.

* Drek! Your uneducated stab in the dark results in results that are unaesthetic, unproductive, unenlightened and unloved.

And, realistically, that list is in increasing order of likelyhood. I think there's a lot to be said for playing around before you go out and check on what others have done, but I wouldn't ship that uniqueness.