Ahhh. Wednesday afternoon and it is time to downtools to address Fandango’s Provocative Question. This week he’s asking whether it is true when people say they’ve seen it all before – how well do we innovate new ideas.
There is a semi-flippant answer to this question. In terms of our knowledge, I think we do innovate. For example, in the whole of human history, nobody ever had an iPhone 10 before. Is that the latest one? I don’t keep track. But even if you had an older phone (presumably at one stage, there was an iPhone 1!) their latest gadget must be barely recognisable.
Whilst I think the iPhone is evidence enough, I think we can always find more elegant examples in human history. Once upon a time, nobody had any idea about the sky or the stars – nighttime might as well have been somebody drawing a curtain over the earth. Only later did we learn about our atmosphere, other atmospheres, stars, hydrogen, fusion….
So I conclude that our (humankind’s) knowledge increases with time, and probably not linearly either – we have probably learned more in the last hundred years than we did in the previous thousand. The limit? Well, I suppose physics is the limit*.
However as I read Fandango’s question, my mind instantly sprang to a quote by Spanish philosopher George Santayana:
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
George Santayana
I’m sure that this quotation will ring true for many of us. How often have we seen politicians, especially, make the same mistakes time and again?
My post today will not be a long one (sighs of relief). Probably that quotation is enough, but I would also point out its origin. From his The Life of Reason, written in 1905-6. Over a hundred years ago. Why do we think he wrote this? Because, way back in 1905, he witnessed those same mistakes, made over and over again. Just as we have in the hundred years since.
* – until we find otherwise
My first thought went to movies. Nothing original only rehashes of old movies brought up to date.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s scary that films as recently as the Eighties are being remade. So maybe that says there is a limit on new ideas for movies, at least? I tend to think that Hollywood’s top priority is making something that’ll make money, rather than remaking a good story. If they’re going to remake anything, I remember some brilliant B&W films I saw as a child.
LikeLike
You made some very valid points.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks, Jim. Have a look at my earlier post today – a song that’ll have you in stitches!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I just started following you, send me the link to your post and I will be happy to read it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
https://strokesurvivor.me.uk/2019/10/23/naughty-words/
LikeLike
Thanks for participating, Pete. I would posit that there’s a difference between innovation and original creation. The original iPhone was definitely an innovation, but there were cell phones before that and before that there were landline phones and before that, telegraphs, and even smoke signals…all innovations on long-distant, human to human communications. That said, I probably couldn’t exist without my iPhone. 😏
LikeLiked by 1 person
I was just reading the “standing on the shoulders of great men quote”, anglicised by Newton but going back to the Dark Ages. I suspect that with everything, everything science anyway, the guy who gets it 100% there is just following on from the guy who got 95% of the way there. So maybe you’re right in your original statement?
LikeLike