Discuss amongst yourself: Invention vs Discovery
Offline I've been harping a lot lately about how matter can only behave in the way it behaves. Cars don't randomly spew diamonds out the exhaust pipe because carbon doesn't just randomly make diamonds. This is easy enough to grasp, but what are the implications for the concept of invention. When we "invented" the bow and arrow, for instance, we could just as easily say that we "discovered" that when matter is arranged in a certain way, it behaves thusly. Sure, we wrapped the string around the stick, but we are also behaving the way we do because matter is orderly and lawful. How far can this extend before it becomes ridiculous?
Is there really any such thing as invention? For that matter, is there really such a thing as design? Sure, we feel as if we are consciously designing automobiles and computers, and of course within the framework of our own consciousness, we are, but within the framework that all we can ever do is discover ways that matter already works and use the existing relationships for our own purpose, is there such a thing as an invention?
More importantly, what does this line of thinking do for the concept of Intelligent Design?
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
- Login to post comments
I was trying to be a little diplomatic there. (I could just as easily have used a dysphemism.)
Do you really want an answer to this? If so, you wouldn't like it. It would regard the coherence of at least the expression of your thought.
Mine is a constant source of non-anthropomorphic input to give me pause to think in a different manner.
It makes sense to you, which is the important thing. I've already said, "I didn't see a proposition for me to agree with.
" Obviously I didn't understand a basic proposition there in the OP. Could you perhaps show me where it is? What I noticed was an apparent semantic confusion stimulated by efforts to confront the notion of intelligent design (a notion which provides a functionally meaningless understanding of the world -- through a total lack of verifiability or falsifiability).
If you can't communicate your concept to me, do you think you'll be able to do so with a proponent of intelligent design?
spin
Trust the evidence, Luke
Hard to say, though I do seem to be having the same problem getting you to think outside of a set perspective that I have with most ID proponents.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
Spin, are you really a linguist? I mean... do you have degrees in linguistics and a job in linguistics?
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
I've already done so in this thread.
I think you miss the point about your assumptions. I am trying to tie a rope around your leg, so you don't float away.
I'm glad you got something out of it. I think you're assuming more than you should about language.
Then I don't see how you can have a perspective to say "Actually, I don't see it that way."
And you don't seem to have succeeded in communicating your ideas successfully, do you?
spin
Trust the evidence, Luke
Yup to linguist. No to job. I'm a self-sustaining soul of leisure. (Never really, to job.)
spin
Trust the evidence, Luke
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
I'll agree with most of this, but you didn't answer my question.
I don't think the majority of the population would hesitate to answer you positively. That suggests a private wavelength. Invention is a complex abstraction. To call something an invention is to reify that abstraction. This doesn't change the fact that the process of inventing in most usage of the term produces something, something actually happens.
Then you need to explain why, as it doesn't seem so to me.
It's an image. (You remember that early 20th c. poetic movement.) It seems to me as though you are making too much hot air and so are liable to float away. Do I need to expand?
OK. Your naughtiness is forgotten about.
Ahh, well. You win some. You lose some.
spin
Trust the evidence, Luke
Look, spin, at least you're not dealing with A-Nony-Mouse here.
The answer to your question is, 'I don't know.'
As far as the definition of communication goes, I also include the intrapersonal sort. I believe that is the crux of our problem as you don't think you can communicate with yourself. I think that's a limiting use of 'communication'. We can happily (I can, at least) disagree here.
I don't deny that something actually happens when something is 'invented'. Obviously matter is formed to create a thing that can be used. The contention is over whether anything is actually invented as the word is understood, I believe.
(Oh, and I know it was an image, I meant that I didn't understand what you meant by it. Now I do. It's okay if you think I'm 'blowing hot air'. Let me to it and as I've said, at least this isn't a conversation with A-Nony-Mouse.)
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
If I look at something, when I have a need to resolve, and I wordlessly think that that something might work for my purposes, then weigh up other things and decide that the first item is the one. Have I to your mind communicated with myself?
You think something happens: something is formed that can be used. Use suggests intention. Does this happen due to the perception of an as yet unfulfilled need? I would suggest that is how the word is basically understood. So, something is formed to be used to fulfill an as yet unfulfilled need, ie something is actually invented. An "invention" is a reification, but the something invented isn't.
I think you're trying to float beyond the edge of the language bubble.
spin
Trust the evidence, Luke
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
You can make such an evaluation without words. Just play any competitive sport or make something improvised.
I think your definition of communication is so wide it loses utility. It seems any thinking process for you is communication.
spin
Trust the evidence, Luke
I'm fed up. Spin, much as I like this tangent (which is not very much at all), I'm going to have to put an end to it. There are subets of 'communication'. That should be so blatantly obvious that I shouldn't have to point it out. Clearly, internal communication would be one such subset. Or an aspect of communication. Whatever. Call it glarbdinglewan if you want communication to maintain the narrow utility that you afford it. It doesn't mean just anything. I'm being quite specific with my use.
Also, I have never said that all thinking exercises are communicative. Clearly there is thinking that is not only nonlinguistic, but is also noncommunicative. Split-second desicion making and evaluations in sports often occurr faster than the conscious mind can perceive. In such cases I would say that no internal dialogue has taken place. Your example was of a drawn out thinking process that could easily, and most certainly would be unavoidably, conceptualized as an internal dialogue. That would be an act of communication.
Now, leave off it if you don't agree because I acknowledge that you don't and see that we are at an impass and I'd really like for the thread to continue in the vain that Hamby no doubt would like. I'm very interested in that, despite your insistence that the conversation is fruitless.
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
Yep. Honestly, I have no horse in this semantic race. It's not addressing my original proposition in any way I can discern.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
Getting back to that, what do you think of the contents of post #47?
Sorry I've been missing out on all the fun. As far as I understand, cursing to express pain and frustation (e.g. stubbing your toe and yelling "FUCK!"
is a special situation. It's a more primal brain function wearing language as clothes. When you kick a dog, it yipes. When you kick a cat, it screeches. All noise-producing animals are capable of these distress calls, and that does not exclude us. However, we re-invent these stress calls. We are perfectly capable of just producing a good old-fashioned "GRRRRRRR!" upon stubbing our toe, but we can also modify the call with words borrowed from our language, which is normally used to communicate. The reason is that by incorporating offensive words into the distress call, the call becomes more abrassive and is much more likely to get attention and to shock. So it reinforces the purpose of the original call. Psycholinguistic research apparently supports this theory, linking this form of swearing to the amygdala.
So although in this situation, the point of saying the word "fuck" is not to send a message to a receiver, the word "fuck" would not exist if it had not first been invented for that purpose. It has simply been commandeered for a new situation.
*edit*
Oops, sorry. I'm supposed to be done.
A place common to all will be maintained by none. A religion common to all is perhaps not much different.
Aha! So we also have something of a hierarchy of purpose. That is, at least a hundred thousand various arrangements of matter will open a bottle of wine. Quite a few less than that will open it by pulling the cork out while leaving the glass and contents basically undisturbed. Very few kinds of arrangements of matter will transport humans across the Atlantic Ocean.
So... one of our possible deliniations might involve something we could call specificity of purpose.
It is a cultural phenomenon, which means it is learned by imitation. I guess the answer to this question is if ever there has been imitation with modification, we might be able to call it invention. I do know that orangutans living in close proximity to humans do imitate with modification, so I would assume chimps can, too.
Heh... forget mitochondrial eve... We've got Toolman Adam.
This does pose an interesting problem, but I'd suggest that my proposition solves it by negating it as a relevant question. That is, if invention and discovery are one in the same, there need be no question of when man first invented something. Surely our pre-human ancestors discovered something... Hell, my cat just discovered a toy he'd lost a month ago. He's batting it around now as if all is right in the universe.
Seriously, though. If invention is just a subset, or even a matter of degree within discovery, there's no point in discussing humans as having any particular difference in kind -- only difference in degree. I find this idea compelling.
Is discovery ever anything except in retrospect?
Speaking of repeating... If we say that evolution invents better anthills by selecting better anthill building ants, then no.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
I was reading a book this morning, and the author at one point remarked that "necessity is the mother of invention", and it immediately made me think of this thread.
Maybe I'm saying what has already been said a thousand times, but invention does appear to have a "necessity" quality to it, whereas discovery does not. So maybe "invention" is synonymous with "applied discovery".
I kind of like the "applied discovery" version, since it doesn't require us to be anthropocentric or to argue about instinctual versus non-instinctual and yet we still arrive at a difference between discovery and invention.
At this point, a creationist might want to try some shady argumentation, asking whether this means that all creatures, according to evolution, are inventors of themselves, since they have applied certain discoveries about which anatomical features are successful, ultimately inventing new or better anatomical features, ultimately inventing new or better creatures.
I'm sure they'd find a more cunning and slippery and misleading way of saying it to make it sound even MORE like invention. But it obviously isn't, since applying discovery requires a conscious effort, regardless of whether the discovery is being applied by instinct or not. It is reproduction and death that guide evolution, and so therefore, nothing about any animal has been "invented".
And as far as the natural world goes, we can make discoveries all the time about the natural world. We can point to our own inventions and call them inventions because we can point to their purpose and how they were made for that purpose and what discoveries were applied to achieve that purpose. However, we can't point to the sun and say that it was invented for a specific purpose. So maybe you were right to draw a distinction along the lines of specificity of purpose. We can't say that the sun exists in order to achieve some end, because there is nothing about the sun that suggests it is guided by certain principles that give it a specific purpose. It certainly DOES things. All matter and all chemical reactions can DO things. But there is nothing to suggest that the sun is operating on APPLIED PRINCIPLES in order to do any of the things it does. The fact that the sun just happens to help out us creatures on Earth is happenstance. Carbon helps a fire, but that is no indication that carbon was "invented" for the purpose of helping fire. So specificity of purpose is a good line of thinking. Maybe there is another factor that distinguishes the two based on whether or not principles have been consciously applied.
There is some grey area with the "applied principles" thing, though... for example, if I pour a bunch of chemicals together to make a new window cleaner, I have applied principles, and yet have I invented a chemical or discovered one? Specificity of purpose helps here. Applied principles perhaps not so much.
But I think some of this is only another way of restating the gist of what you have been saying all along, isn't it?
So maybe I'm just being redundant. Ah well.
A place common to all will be maintained by none. A religion common to all is perhaps not much different.
I like the "applied discovery"
Couldn't it be said that something is discovered and then out of necessity we discover a use for that something?
Ever since I read this thread everything I use during the day I find me asking myself... invention? ... A specific placement of items together to create something to help me?... An accidental discovery of an items usefullness?...
Slowly building a blog at ~
http://obsidianwords.wordpress.com/
I would like to list a few examples:
Discovery: Fire
Inventions: Torches, Stoves, Kilns, Lamps, Fireplace
Another example:
Discovery: Reflection
Invention: Mirror, Prismatic Mirror
I'm seeing that a discovery is an observation, and that an invention is a way of repeating/inducing the phenomenon to suit the needs/wants of the inventor. I think that invention depends also on making successive discoveries.
A mirror can be a bowl of water. Primative mirrors were most likely of this type and they weren't very useful until someone figured out how to make flat sheets of gold or copper. Then someone figured out how to coat a piece of glass with aluminium or silver. Future mirrors may be made of yet to be discovered nanotech particles optimised to reflect 99.999% of EM energy.
There's the old adage that necessity is the mother of invention. So I say that discovery is about paying attention and observing some phenomenon (somewhat accidentally being in the right place at the right time), and invention is chaining together the new discovery with previous discoveries to solve a problem i.e. a fireplace solves the problem of freezing to death on a frigid day.
Hamby, are you just essentially saying that humanity has already discovered just about everything about the Universe and we are starting to repeat ourselves with our inventions?
Remember how you figured out there is no Santa? Well, their god is just like Santa. They just haven’t figured out he’s not real yet.
Some may argue that the Sun perhaps was invented/created/made by a god to allow for life on Earth. If I were designing such an arrangement, i would have also made a control system, perhaps a feedback loop, to adjust the output of the Sun so that it always put out the optimal amount of radiation. As far as I know, such a system has never been discovered or observed.
Remember how you figured out there is no Santa? Well, their god is just like Santa. They just haven’t figured out he’s not real yet.
Discovery: my crotch is itchy
Invention: hand-operated crotch-scratcher, battery-operated crotch-scratcher, anti-inflammatory crotch cream.
Discovery: it's time to make some more money from Trap Door 1.0
Invention: Trap Door 1.1
Invention is stimulated not necessarily by discovery at all, but by need or desired end product. The relationship between the two notions simply hasn't been established.
I've tried to componentialize the ideas and I'll try again:
Invent[agent(human1), new product, means] =
conceive[experiencer(human1), need] ->
design[agent(human1), new concept, product plan] ->
construct[agent(human1), new product, means]
Discover[observer, new fact]
Not very similar, are they?
spin
Trust the evidence, Luke
I see a false analogy here. Whereas TomJ was listing as his discoveries observations that could be used as principles in invention, the reply lists an observation that identifies a problem the invention can solve. To make the analogy more true, you'd have to list an invention that puts the itchiness of your crotch to use. Perhaps some kind of futuristic itch ray that uses your crotch problem as ammunition. Worst case scenario, you just invented the crab gun! Oh noes!
Once again this example shifts the meaning of "observation" to identifying a problem that needs to be solved or a need and away from identifying a principle that can possibly be harnessed or put to use.
That much I will agree with you on completely. A mere discovery does not lead to an invention. In order for invention to happen, there must first be a need.
But I think it more or less has.
Discovery does not lead to invention, because invention requires need.
Once you have a need, you are ready to begin inventing.
However, you cannot begin inventing until you have arrived at a concept built upon certain principles. These principles are only known to you via discovery (yours or someone else's).
A place common to all will be maintained by none. A religion common to all is perhaps not much different.
There seems to be a glimmer of your dawning perception of what I was actually saying.
Perhaps now you'll see that that I was pointing out (as I went on to do in the post you responded to) that there is no necessary relationship between "discover" and "invent".
There need not be a discovery in the normal sense at all.
Sorry, but case not made.
You should have learnt through my examples regarding Discovery/Invention that no discovery is needed at all. My patented solar-powered crotch-scratcher required no discovery whatsoever, so while discovery can motivate invention there is no necessary relation between the two notions. Negating or demoting the agent role in invention will have no effect on intelligent design. The issues lie elsewhere in things like assumption of conclusion. Science happily admits that there are things it just doesn't know. If science doesn't know the cause, is there any reason to believe that non-science has any ability to know the cause? Omitting the epistemological problem, this is where one assumes one's conclusion: let's postulate an intelligent designer to explain what science is currently unable to explain. The postulation of said intelligent designer is a purely linguistic act, which can be neither verified or falsified in the real (hence non-linguistic) world.
spin
Trust the evidence, Luke
I'm aware that this is what you are saying. I'm just disagreeing with it. Well, partly.
Discovery does not depend in any way on invention. But invention does, in the long run, depend on discovery. So there is a relationship, but the dependence only goes one way.
You don't seem to understand or want to accept that your patented crotch-scratcher does, in fact, depend on discovery. It doesn't necessarily require you, the inventor of the crotch-scratcher, to make any discoveries, but in order for there to be a crotch-scratcher, you have to build the crotch-scratcher concept upon certain principles. Those principles would not be known to you unless they had, at some point in the past, been discovered by someone.
For example, you specifically mentioned that it was solar-powered. Didn't someone have to discover, at some point in the past, that solar-energy could be harnessed as a viable power source? Hence, solar-energy is a discovered principle that can be applied to inventions.
Even if your crotch-scratcher was as simple as a stick you found in the yard, you would still be basing its use as a scratcher upon certain principles that you or someone else had to discover. Otherwise, its use as a scratcher never would have occurred to you in the first place.
I would agree that discovery does not always inspire invention. Just because I discover something, it doesn't mean that invention will result. I may simply say, "that's neat" and get on with my life. But since discovery does not depend upon a relationship with invention, that is not saying much.
But whenever anyone is inventing anything, certain principles, and therefore certain discoveries, are definitely being applied; otherwise, there could not possibly be invention.
Hence, a non-mutual relationship, but a relationship just the same.
A place common to all will be maintained by none. A religion common to all is perhaps not much different.
That sounds well supported.
Deep. I guess if your great grandfather hadn't discovered that thing for the woman who became your great grandmother, you'd never have invented this profound rationale. Come on: be reasonable.
Reductionism seems a little endemic here in this thread. If you go back far enough with the elastic limit for your idea of discovery, you might be able to say that god was the first cause motivating the discovery.
Perhaps in your mind all gaining of knowledge is discovery, but that renders "discovery" void of any useful extra semantic content.
Sorry, you didn't get there. But it was nice to say as a conclusion despite lack of rationale, right?
spin
Trust the evidence, Luke
Let's not cross our purposes. I'm not doing science in here and I don't for an instant expect to arrive at "the answer", and I don't for an instant suppose that I have it. Everything here about the distinction between invention/discovery is speculation from the armchair.
I think you should follow your own advice. You appear to have a habit of strawmanning those you're disagreeing with. I don't know if it's intentional or if the ideas aren't being communicated to you well enough or something else, but it's certainly not helping.
Here you've strawmanned me by implying that invention for me is impossible unless my great grandfather made a discovery that I could build an invention upon. I'm not proposing anything so ridiculous as that. Look, if I want to build a machine that is solar-powered, it doesn't require me to discover solar energy. It doesn't require my great grandfather to discover it. It doesn't even require anyone I have ever known to discover it. It only requires one person, somewhere, to discover solar energy and then submit that discovery into the general pool of knowledge that everyone has access to. After that point, if I learn about solar energy by reading about it in a library, I am not making a discovery. However, I couldn't be reading about it if some person had not discovered it. And so even though the particular discovery (of solar energy) was a completely separate event from the invention of my solar-powered machine, the invention still required the discovery.
I like that you mentioned that the ideas I'm proposing could be considered an invention. It's true, and I don't think non-physical invention has been considered in this thread yet, so it was important to bring up. Still, I suspect it fits within the "applied discovery" explanation of invention. An invented idea seems to me to be just as much built upon existing principles as a physical invention.
I really don't see how that is in any way related to what I'm trying to communicate, nor how it is a possible implication, but that could be my fault as a speaker rather than yours as a listener.
No, I wouldn't go as far as to say that discovery boils down to mere acquisition of knowledge. "Discovery" would have to be reserved for situations like talking about the first person known to have acquired a certain bit of knowledge. (Or at least the person thought to have been the first one.)
Again, I'm not supposing for a moment that I've arrived anywhere. I'm not pretending to have the conclusion to this conversation. This thread is a fun, ongoing activity as far as I'm concerned.
A place common to all will be maintained by none. A religion common to all is perhaps not much different.
And spin is trying to ruin it for everyone by bringing up inane objections, accussations of reductionism (of what sort?), and so much semantic quibbling.
Spin, we know you disagree. We have read your objections before. You are repeating yourself. It is not heplful. It is unwarrented. Can you please stop? If you don't want to add to the discussion and instead detract from its moving forward in any meaningful way for those involved, can you not just stop posting in this thread? I don't see how you have anything to gain or anything to loose by just stepping away. So, please, do.
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
Nothing comes of nothing. Speak again.
Doh! Neither did I.
I try to point out the extremely wide nature of your use of "discovery" and you simply miss the point. Don't go spasmodic about strawmen.
Repetitive reductionism. I have knowledge. If I use that knowledge to invent something, you'll claim that I'm just sublimating the discovery. And I'll claim that you've wasted a perfectly good word by removing its content.
I can't see my itchy crotch, so I guess I'll need something hooked in order to reach it. I'll make it out of a somewhat flexible material because I don't want to risk damaging my crotch, but it must be solid enough not to ineffectual. Etc. Discovery? None.
(I didn't think it would help us either way, just add a further layer of layer of complexity. Unless you realoly need to go there, I'd guess we needn't deal with it.)
It was an observation extrapolated from your reductionism with the term "discovery" and at least one other example in this thread.
Yet for the inventor it could simply be acquisition of knowledge, ie the inventor in such a case made no discovery whatsoever, right?
Umm, "hence" points to a logical conclusion. You were attempting to put forward an argument of sorts which ended up at that "hence". The evaluation of that argument led to why I said "you didn't get there". Your last statements seem to be rejecting your own logical progression.
spin
Trust the evidence, Luke
You're free to conjecture, but you know that says very little.
I know you know, you know?
From your reactions, you haven't displayed the fact.
I was speaking to someone else. And I said I was partially repeating material.
You've made that clear from your lack of suitable reaction.
As I wasn't talking to you in the post you are responding to, you shouldn't be so presumptuous. Archeopteryx was discussing issues with me.
All you need do, once you've got to this point, is ignore what I've written and deal with the people who want to talk with you about what you want to talk about. It is frequent that threads develop subthreads. You don't have to drop your bundle when someone in the thread isn't talking about what you want to talk about.
Please be nice.
spin
Trust the evidence, Luke
Condescension doesn't make for a fitful response to my post, but it does make you look childish. Look, you're obviously able to continue to post in this thread, I was only asking you not to because I don't see a point to your involvement. There is nothing I can do about your choice. Now, since you don't appear to have any intention of doing so, I suppose I can ignore you. Still, I'd much rather you ignored the thread.
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
I'm also a bit put off by what I see as unwarranted condescension from you, Spin. The thread didn't take an uncivil turn until your entrance. Maybe it's unintentional, or maybe something was said to you first that started you off on this tone and I just haven't seen it, but you put off an extremely thick vibe of condescension and mean-spirited provocation.
I suppose I'll take this opportunity to back out. You can call it whining if you wish, and you're more than welcome to declare a victory if you like; it makes no difference to me. But the conversation has simply entered a place that is no longer fun or particularly civil; and it is because of the tone and not the intellectual content that the thread has lost its original appeal. I'm sure there is someone else around who is more compatible with the ongoing style of disagreement, but I refuse to further participate. And so, even though it surely earns me quitter status or what have you, I'm out until further notice.
A place common to all will be maintained by none. A religion common to all is perhaps not much different.
Yeah. I'm going to agree. I started this thread in the spirit of exploration, and I feel like it's had a wet blanket thrown over it. I don't think that anyone has made any pronouncements. We've just been toying with ideas. I'm sorry, Spin, that you don't like or agree with or understand (whatever the case is) what we're talking about, but it's honestly a pain in the ass that you are hijacking the thread with repeat assertions of your opinion. Is it too much to ask that you let us toy with these ideas without you continually pointing out that you neither understand nor agree with them?
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
Oh, look. You posted an idea. I complained about someone's statement, indicating my comment was a tangent, so then I get drawn into a discussion with three different posters. And I responded to each of them. After one rude post about condescension from a non-stop condescension artist, I decided that there was no communication possible there. Archeopteryx piped up 4 hours later. Finally, you, not having noticed that I hadn't re-entered the conversation, decided 13 hours too late that you'd have a whinge as well.
I complained about there being no necessary overlap between the semantic fields of the two words you were analyzing. I attempted to do this by looking at the component ideas of the terms. You didn't acknowledge or criticize; you basically restated your starting notion: "[i]nvention can be said to be a subset of discovery". OK. I get the idea now.
spin
Trust the evidence, Luke
Pardon me for not being on the forums 24/7.
Um... ok. Isn't restating a form of acknowledgement?
You have the idea, so apparently restatement worked. Whatever. Seriously. I'm going to play with some other toys for a while. I'm over this.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
I see it didn't dawn on you what idea you gave. (Waving smilie here.)
spin
Trust the evidence, Luke
I haven't read the whole post (I've got homework I have to get to), but I tend to think of this topic this way:
Invention - the process of combining existing resources to create something new. So for the bow and arrow, you have a stick and a leather strap, and you combine them to create a bow. It is a primarily combinatorial process.
Discovery - the process of realizing something true about the universe. For example that a bent stick stores energy - the principal behind the bow.
Inventions lead to new discoveries, and new discoveries lead to new inventions (like the telescope lead to the discovery of the moons of Jupiter, which lead to a heliocentric worldview which in turn lead to the invention of space flight).
Note that these ideas apply themselves to social constructs as well. Language is a combination of sounds, meanings and metaphor. Institutions are a combination of roles and processes. Philosophers discovered that human greed and lust for power is an innate human trait. They solved social problems by using this discovery to invent a system of checks and balances through the separation of powers. Civil rights are an invention built on the discovery that if you build certain boundary conditions into a government system it functions better.
and on an on.
This is how I think about it at any rate.
I still don't understand Spin's quibble with communication. If communication is the "imparting or exchange of thoughts, opinions, and/or information," then language clearly exists solely for communication. For your response, you stated,
But, these are all effects or categories of communication. You even applied the word "expression," which, in this sentence, could literally be replaced by communication and still hold the same meaning. Language communicates emotional and physical states, it is a viable means of control through effective communication. When you lie, you communicate. When you are entertained by language, someone is expertly communicating it to you in a particular way. You and your parents/spouse/friend create a feeling of companionship through proficient communication.
You also wrote,
That's easy! If you are trying to pay your taxes and have discovered that you incorrectly calculated some obscure income about a page earlier, then "fuck," among many other things, shows frustration with the task at hand. In another example, if you stubbed your toe on the bottom of a couch, then "fuck" can also express pain.
Sure, but that's doesn't seem to be the dictionary definition of the word communication.
Furthermore, based on this defiinition, whether exclaiming "fuck" is communication seems to rest solely on whether another human was in the room when you stubbed your toe.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
(Hijack alert)
(Hmmm... can I hijack m own thread?)
(Get to the point, Hambydammit...)
The tree falling in the forest is, IMHO, the quintessential example of a lie repeated enough that it becomes truth. Sound, kids, is vibration. Ears are sound detection devices. That thing in our head that we call a sound? It's an interpretation of the vibrations that existed whether or not we were there to perceive them.
Yes, a tree falling in the forest makes a sound regardless of the presence of ears, and yes, the exclamation uttered without a hearer is communication.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
A thought: numbers.
Let's say I have a bowl with apples in it. Specifically, there's an apple, an apple, and another apple.
Most people would condense that and simply say there are three apples, right? But is "three" an invention?
Note that I'm not talking about the actual quantity. An apple, an apple, and another apple is always an apple, an apple, and another apple regardless. But we decided to call that "three." Or "tres." Insert other languages here.
Did we invent the word "three?" It seems we didn't discover it, as the apples are always the apples are always the apples. But did we invent a term for describing the situation?
Hambydammit: I think the point you were trying to make about ID might have been something like this: if everything is discovered and not invented, then nothing was designed per se. If nothing was designed, how does one argue for ID (aka design inherent in everything due to something)?
The way I see it, the seperation between invention and discovery is as thin a line as the seperation between art and function.
Movies, books(fiction), music = invention = art.
Wheel, pulley, lever, books(non-fiction) = discovery = function.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
I would classify invention as meta-discovery. That is to say, discovering ways to combine previous discoveries to achieve specific results.
After eating an entire bull, a mountain lion felt so good he started roaring. He kept it up until a hunter came along and shot him.
The moral: When you're full of bull, keep your mouth shut.
MySpace
I'm going to spend a while thinking about this. It's concise and easily understood. If it also happens to be accurate...
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism