Posted by Mike on September 10, 2002 at 23:28:32:

In Reply to: Re: Innovation in Knowledge Exchange posted by Joe on September 10, 2002 at 14:13:02:

I would be happy to expand on my statement but according to your own statements it appears that you do understand my meaning after all.

Why “wasn’t” electricity discovered by the Romans?” and “What future innovation will succeed the internet?”

These questions cannot be answered when applied to the Romans and cannot be answered now when applied to future concepts because it is beyond our capacity (as it was theirs) to predict or determine any sequence of events that are not in a natural order (that which is natural as we know it). Because of this we are limited asking ourselves what innovation would “succeed” the Internet and not what will "supervene" it. At first glace this seems like a simple matter of semantics, but in truth, we are conditioned to assume the next logical turn of events (succeed) and are incapable of thinking that far outside the box (supervene – to suggest the following or beginning of something unforeseen or unpredictable). Sure we can have ideas or base probable events on past experience or scientific research, but in the end, the only thing we can predict with any degree of certainty are the next logical sequence of events. That, of course, is not to say that we cannot have ideas that may seem far-fetched now but become realities in the future. There are three types of conceptualists: 1) Those who successfully act on their ideas and become our celebrated inventors, creative geniuses, and technological over-achievers. 2) Those who act on their concepts and fail, dooming themselves to a reputation as crack-pots, dreamers, and nut-cases. 3) And most importantly, those who had equally fantastic ideas but did not act on them? My God, now that is the real question to ponder! What inventions escaped us, were lost forever with the death of a shy idealist who kept his thoughts to himself, or were wasted on a napkin over dinner with non-believers who laughed at the idea so hard that the artist never spoke of it again? A Roman who dreamed of electricity perhaps? I contend that such a person probably existed (though he did not view or understand his idea in the same way that we view proven electrical theory today as it exists today).

In order to expand our cognitive capacity we must first condition ourselves to think in terms of supervening rather than succession. The word itself, derived from the Latin “supervenire” did not even come into existence until 1648, and it appears that we, with our presently limited capacity for cognitive thinking, have yet to learn how to use it to our advantage.

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