prove i'm wrong-

[mopinko]

some say necessity is the mother of invention, but i think her name is serendipity.

[padfun]

1. prove i'm wrong-

there are flying pigs and unicorns in this world.
and space aliens love to eat them occasionally.

[mopinko]

2. well, i cant prove you wrong, but i can suggest there is something wrong

w you sense of humor.

[padfun]

3. I know. Its just impossible to prove something wrong.

nt

[Newest Reality]

4. Plato said that...

Plato said that necessity is the mother of invention. The need is the driver to invent something that provides a solution. Sitting on a hard rock, one sees the need for a more comfortable way to sit, etc.

Serendipity has a different connotation. It would not necessarily require a voluntary act, (but could include it) and implies fate, chance, destiny, emergence and also a beneficial, happy outcome. In an ontological sense, the immediate moment of experience could be called a spontaneous emergence because one has to conceptually construct a "metaphysical" narrative to describe before and after, past and future, etc.

Necessity and its birthing of inventions is more narrow and consciously deliberate as well as a linear, cause and effect situation. The hard rock causes the need to invent a chair. If you are comfortable on your rock and lazy, then why bother to figure out an alternative?

Oh, and then there is fatalism and the idea of waiting around for fate to evolve a chair for you

[The Magistrate]

5. Who Needs Proof, Ma'am?

Why not just declare it? Argument by assertion is very much the style today....

That is a very good line, though, and I expect it is often true. After all, simply because something is needed does not require it to be available. The problem may not have a solution. On the other hand, things do often simply occur, and the trick is to recognize them when they do, and see to how they came about, so they can be made to happen again. In my minor craft of scale modelling the saying goes: If it happens once, it's a mistake --- if you can do it twice, it's a technique. There are a number of little tricks built up in my repertoire over the years from things that didn't turn out as expected, but proved useful in future to know could occur.

[mopinko]

6. it is much more often the spark, tho, dont you think sir?

it certainly is for me.

[The Magistrate]

7. I Do Suspect So, Ma'am

It seems quite likely one of the most important advances in our history, the extraction of metal from ores, owes to serendipity. Copper ores are often brilliant colors, blues and greens, and were used as pigments in decorating ceramics. Fired in a kiln, these would occasionally 'sweat' metallic copper. The stuff was already known from nugget form, and someone, or many someones in a number of places and times, drew the conclusion....

[mopinko]

10. when i was homeschooling me kids, we went to the library every tuesday.

they could check out any video tape, and it counted as "homeschool teevee", since they had nothing that was of the sort of low worth as the usual programming.

primo's fave was a bbc series called "connections"
history of innovation.

iirc it was the first episode that made the connection between water in english coal mines, and mr watts machine, and the science of color, and modern printing.

it can get a bit scary out here in the higher exponents from a big bang like mr watt's engine.
but aint it grand to be human?

[sorcrow]

8. Two mothers?

Please tell me invention has two mothers. That should drive the RWNJs crazy.

Regards,
Crow

[mopinko]

9. dead, dead, dead here

good job.