3 ms·

Sure, but, as you say, ideas are discovered, and because they are discovered as opposed to created, their existence is not dependent on the specific person disc

• anigbrowl 14y ago
  When you're arguing from definitions like this (discovery vs creation) that's a good sign something is wrong with your argument. One could just as easily say 'X has created a hyperspace drive' as 'X has discovered it.' Discovery is rarely so fortuitous as walking along and stumbling across something of value, as if it were a gold nugget lying on the ground. Most 'accidental discoveries' come after lengthy failed searches, much as most 'overnight success' is actually the result of years of hard work. what you're arguing is basically a sort of teleological justification for communism; if innovations of one sort or another would be found anyway, their finding must be part of an inevitable progression and the identity of the individual finder is incidental, thus we should only reward labor in terms of time spent. Since there's now way to predict where the next discovery will come from, we may as well reward everyone's labor equally on the basis of time rather than productivity. I don't mean this as an ideological criticism, if that's what you happen to believe is ideal; I'm just pointing out that that's where you argument goes and I'm not sure if that was where you intended it to do.