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Of course. Knowledge is always collective. We hugely underestimate how much knowledge is externalised in cultural firmware, passed down from generation to gener
by TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
Of course. Knowledge is always collective. We hugely underestimate how much knowledge is externalised in cultural firmware, passed down from generation to generation, and only accumulated - when it accumulates at all - because of inventions like writing, math formalisms, cultural and creative traditions, and the scientific method.
Without a head start from previous generations you get a rather dumb monkey. Even a genius dumb monkey is going to be extremely limited in what it can do.
Even so - an educated genius monkey with the right life opportunities can still generate lone game changing insights that most monkeys can't.
Without that kind of step change insight domains will stagnate, sometimes for centuries. No amount of collective cultural activity of any kind will move them on.
- ineedasername 5y agoYes, I generally agree with this. Fertile soil may abound for countless years before just the right seed takes hold. The presence of fertile soil should not eclipse what the seed becomes, but neither should "what it becomes" be seen as independent from that fertile soil. If there is a "myth of the myth", it is only that the concept of "lone genius" focuses too much on the achievements of the seed, while the "myth of the lone genius" focuses too much on the fertile soil. The truth is somewhere in the middle.