Hi Tim, awesome piece of work. You hit every nail on its head. I would like to add...
Evolutionary change is when we are faced with obstructions and conflicts. The basic laws of nature kick in and we start to become inventive and find ways to overcome and in most cases adapt to the changes we face. If we look into the far past we see that Homo Sapiens have been around for over 400,000 years, and yet its only the last 12,000 years or so that we find archaeological proof of any kind of technological change, and then another leap 8,000 year later to ancient cities, and then a slow but steady progress over the past 8,000 years where exponential changes were met due to human conflicts including the mathematical, astronomical findings of the Muslim era and the scientific findings during the renaissance. Obviously the most impressive changes were due to conquest needs, such as the logistics of the Roman Empire or the continuous religious wars that erupted when Islam met the Christian world. The reality of change is based on the human base nature to be lazy! Yes, lazy. We want to be comfortable, sit back, sleep, eat, drink, and fornicate…but we can’t because we have another base instinct and that is jealousy which lead to greed and this leads to ritualized religions and political structures. The need product is that we bring about change (scientific included) as a means to overcome obstructions to our comfort and as a means to overcome conflicts we ourselves generate. Now arises a question, what happened between 400,000 years ago and 12,000 years ago? Why did humans not advance sooner? If they did, why do we not find any evidence? Good questions, no answers. So lets not ruminate over this and focus on now, the state of change now.
During the last 50 years or so we have seen leaps and bounds in all areas, and the best way to present these changes is by looking at how does making life easier for society create a conflict. The best example is robotics. We are being blanket marketed with how robotics will replace humans in work, and it is. What is not happening is what do we do with the humans that have been replaced with robots and the impact these “unemployed” people have on society. One scientific leap creates a new societal conflict and obstruction is removed from one group and transferred to another. The car industry of Michigan is a classic example of mass production lines going automated and how this impacts the employment in Detroit. We then see the impact of the internet on information services, and how printed papers were replaced by digital. Again, entire sectors were impacted including the paper and ink industries.
Now lets look at original inventions and hybrid inventions. An original invention is when something is created that did not exit before, such as the Wheel, Penicillin or the V1 Rocket. A hybrid invention is when we take existing things and make something new by combining them, such as the tank, a Tesla car, and the iPod. All those came into existence using technology that had already been around. What is the difference between the two? The original inventions or discoveries usually come around through trial and error with a distinct need to improve a current state. The wheel was discovered to be an easier way of transport by observing logs for transporting heavy objects or watching circular rocks move. Penicillin was sought after to find something to attack bacteria and the V1 rocket was sought after to provide a faster propulsion system. The iPod was the mingling of the internet with a computer hard disk and some software to provide access to a list of music. It was the miniaturization of the tape deck and boom boxes into a smaller and easier to use device but could not come into being before the internet and the computer had been invented. The Tesla car is just a modern version of the 1900’s electrical cars using modern technologies to create a faster and more comfortable road worthy ride than the original models.
Why did I review the above two kinds of invention, because when we look at the impact of modern invention, we cannot take away the impact of “too many trees to see the forest” comment? We are inundated by so much information, and we are also undated by so many opinionated people that can block an invention, that creating or finding something new is being replaced by just finding ways to use what we have to make a fast buck rather then actually try to find something new and original. Perhaps medicine is one of the bastions of originality, but when we look at most other areas we find much of the same. When we look at physics we see “schools” of thought barricading themselves behind ancient formulas and not accepting the fact that what was discovered in the past might not be correct. Whilst a lot of basic knowledge is correct, the more complex theories (note- theories) are not so correct. The best example for this is the argument around time travel and even the argument about what is time. Or the argument on the speed of light and how to measure it.
Originality does not need money, proof does. This is where we are failing today. There are many inventive people out there, they have discovered amazing things, but they are not getting funded because their findings are not considered “profitable”. Theoretical inventions have been replaced by ROI inventions. Imagine how Einstein would have been accepted if he wrote his theories in 2010 and not in 1908. He would have been laughed out of the internet by a multitude of self-righteous egotistical prigs.
This is why we are seeing less original inventiveness…not because its not happening, but because its being ridiculed and ignored. Consider the case of Galileo and the Catholic Church, not multiply Galileo by 100 and multiply the Catholic Church by 1 billion. That’s the difference between then and now. Then there was 1 inventor and one Critic, today there might be over a hundred such inventors, but due to the internet there are a billion critics and the invention are being lost in the noise.
Post Note, on AI...totally agree with you. I have argued this point many times.
