Inventing is not the same as problem solving. Nor is it the same as adapting existing ideas and techniques to suit a purpose. Inventing is about creating something brand new.
About his own inventions, Edison said "What it boils down to is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration." What I have to say here is about the one per cent. That one per cent has three components.
- Every invention has a purpose. It does something useful: lobbing a projection over a wall, providing a source of artificial light, performing mechanical calculations with remarkable speed and accuracy.
- Every invention has an approach, an idea, a specific notion about how to do what it purports to do: pack gunpowder behind the projectile in a tube and set the gunpowder afire, pass a current through a thin conductor, connect non-linear electronic components in a way that embodies some calculation or another.
- Behind almost every invention is a rationale as to why it should work. Bad rationales lead to non-inventions: Ouija boards, flying machines based on flapping wings, and so on. Good inventions are based on good rationales: electrical current passing through a thin conductor emits light in the visible spectrum. Machine theory teaches us that any computation can be implemented in a finite-state machine.
Better yet, work out how these three elements map to our little project.
- What is the intention behind an intentional community based on social capital? Is the creation of this community an end in itself or is the aim something else, say, rescuing society, or at least ourselves from all the evils of civilization pointed out by Quinn and others?
- What is the invention here? Is it some technique for creating and maintaining social capital? If so, what, specifically, is that technique? If not, what is the invention?
- If we can figure out what the invention is, what reason do we have to think that it will work? Will embody the secret to the Amish's success, whatever that may be, or something else?
Henry, I don't think the group can say yet that it's "out to invent a culture." That's certainly one of the ingredients that I myself see in the mix, but the group has just formed, so I'd say "it" doesn't really yet know what "it" wants. I also think it might be more apropos to think in terms of "developing" an "alternative" to present culture, which would not require the "invention" of an altogether new culture. That would be a daunting challenge, indeed! (An alternative culture is the kind of thing that might emerge "organically" from the collective interests of the founders, rather than necessarily being something that they must invent (although they will probably have to be very intentional about it--however it takes shape). Also (in my own mind, at least), this group has been deliberately formed as a "study" group rather than as an "action" group. Much thought and reflection seems necessary before deciding anything about "what is to be done."
ReplyDeleteI'm curious, Henry, what your own interest here is. Your earlier comparison of social capital to the Dutch East Indies company, and now this discussion of "invention," seem ever so slightly afield to me. What is it that's drawing you to this topic and to this discussion, would you say?
Oooh, sorry. I thought I saw a remark of yours someplace that put the group in the inventing business. My bad. Now, to your questions. That said, it might not be bad to have some sort of methodology, even just for a "study" group.
ReplyDelete1. Am I not "far afield?" Maybe, maybe not. If you want to get a handle on a concept, you have to explore its borders. Being slightly far afield is not a bad place to be from this standpoint.
2. What is my own interest here? I'm looking for adventure. I'm looking for a new direction for the church. I'm always interested in talking to interesting people about interesting things.
I suppose somewhere along the line I might have used the term "invent"--that's possible. I might have said it in a conversation to emphasize the degree to which I hold the current culture as dysfunctional, but anyway...
ReplyDelete1. I think this group will need to make up the borders of this concept to suit our own needs for using it.
2. OK! I also think there are promising possibilities here re: a new direction for the church. We'll see. You're ALWAYS interesting Henry, so I'm glad you're interested!