"epistemology or a similar field has pondered the "invented or discovered" question already, and if so, I want to read about it." Yep. Me too. In fact, request

"epistemology or a similar field has pondered the "invented or discovered" question already, and if so, I want to read about it." Yep. Me too. In fact, request for essay! It sounds like a topic I'd love to read pg meander into, for example. I think anytime invention starts to seem like a discovery, it's probably a good invention. I'm not sure there is a fundamental difference between the two. If you strain hard enough and get precise enough with your definitions, you could probably describe any invention as a discovery and the reverse. Recursively, that probably means any such definitions are inventions rather than discoveries.