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OK let me invent something: A fignaft is a small pink bird from the island of slamp. It has a short triangular beak well adapted to plucking seeds out of the h
by jhedwards 6y ago
OK let me invent something:
A fignaft is a small pink bird from the island of slamp. It has a short triangular beak well adapted to plucking seeds out of the hard cones of the humnit bush. It was nearly hunted to extinction by the umaglots, until their chief shaman declared the bird to be a repository of the souls of men lost at sea. Since then it has made a remarkable recovery.
In contrast to the mental process required to invent an imaginary bird such as this, the folks who discovered DNA used tools to image cell internals such that the structure of the contents was revealed.
When DNA was discovered, something about the structure of the external world was made clear to us, and many other processes could be clarified as a result. The fignaft bird, on the other hand, only reveals the contents of my mind, and is constructed entirely of existing knowledge.
- lisper 6y agoOK let me invent something: gnoiwiof wefoin wf oinwfe oinfowin wfeoi fwenoifwe Do you count that as in invention? If not, what distinguishes it from your "invention"?
- alanbernstein 6y agoYou seem to be protesting that the bird invention is nonsense, and no more meaningful than random letters. Regardless of the answer to your question, I think you might be overlooking a different point. Here is my invention: a new piece of jewelry, a double ring, which you wear on both a finger and a toe at the same time. This is a realizable physical object that (presumably) has never existed before. Is it a discovery?
- techbio 6y agoThis double ring may be the instrument that discovers a market for itself, or a visual/tactile aid to remind oneself of something, but in itself this invention is not a discovery of anything that can be said to have existed.
- cmonnow 6y agoYour comment, made by alanbernstein 3 hours ago on this website hackernews on 4/17/2020 has never existed before. Is it an invention ?
- alanbernstein 6y agoIf I must choose between invention and discovery, then yes.
- cmonnow 6y agoAll you did was discover that if you typed those words on your computer, they would appear on that website on that day.
- alanbernstein 6y agoSo each distinct event can be discovered, regardless of how predictable it is based on previous events? Each sunrise is a discovery?
- cmonnow 6y ago"predictability" is only a function of your memory capacity and/or knowledge. To a scientist/saint who has done a lifetime of study/penance on the past, present and future, every invention is predictable. To a goldfish with 5-second memory, every sunrise, why every breath, is a discovery. Look at it another way. A scientist 'discovers' the atom. He didn't 'invent' it, right? Now, how did he discover it ? Using a microscope that another scientist 'invented'. So far so good? Now go down the chain to that scientist. How did he 'invent' the microscope ? Did he make it out of thin air ? No, he was one day playing with 2 optic lenses that another scientist 'invented', and when placed in a line, he 'discovered' that they magnified it 100 times what one lens did. And he told everyone that 2 lenses together is called a microscope that he 'invented'. So far, so good ? Now, go down the chain to that scientist. How did he 'invent' the optic lens ? Did he create it out of thin air ? No, he was one day playing with glass which another scientist 'invented', and when looking through it, he 'discovered' that they magnified it things 10 times their size. And he told everyone that looking through a glass lens is a 'magnifying glass' that he 'invented'. So far, so good ? You see the pattern here ? Every permutation combination of nature exists. In other words, all possible inventions already exist waiting to be discovered by humans, or all possible discoveries are waiting to be invented. The 2 words are synonyms. Something 'new' that you 'discovered' was someone else's 'invention'. And once you go beyond the deepest chain that your senses can reach, even the physical laws that govern our universe that were 'discovered' are an 'invention' of God. Where did God discover it from ? We can ask Him.