Invention and discovery

The line between invention and discovery is a very thin one. Particularly in our current milieu, where truth and reality are themselves uncertain notions. To me, the turning point happened at the turn of the 20th century, when two geniuses, I believe independently, discovered that we cannot separate what is really out there and what we perceive. In their own ways, they were equally influential - Einstein in the field of science, and Husserl in the fields of philosophy and the arts.

Of the two, Husserl was the elder but the impact of Einstein was, of course, more extensive. It has to do with our preoccupation with science and fantasy. The ideas of time travel and quarks are more concrete matters that engage the public's mind more easily. The impact of Husserl is, on the other hand, more subtle and perhaps more pervasive. We think differently today because of what he did but we do not realise that we owe it to him.

Despite this, however, there is a reality out there that is not of our making. The phenomenologists call it intersubjectivity. Call it what you will, but if we don't face up to this reality, global warming and other environmental disasters will soon knock us over the head.

Put simply, we need to distinguish between invention and discovery. Invention is of our making while discovery is what we can learn of God's making. How can we tell? I suggest there is this first and most simple difference. A discovery is something someone else can test for himself and find out if it is true or not. An invention is something that is true only because of the inventor.

Science is therefore a discipline of discovery while engineering is a discipline of invention. And if we compare the findings of science and what we can learn from engineering, we discover that science is always surprising while engineering is always explicable.

I want to suggest something further. Discovery, if we touch upon truth, will always reveal the divine intelligence. And this divine intelligence has certain characteristics: its laws are always simple, its consequences are always amazing, its forms are always beautiful, and while it can be appreciated by all, it is always beyond our understanding. Invention, however wonderful, can always be picked apart and understood. It is often complicated. Take for example a car, it is essentially an internal combustion engine. But there are so many other bits to it and each of the bits is there to solve a specific and particular problem. Take an animal, in contrast. On the surface, it appears simple. You can easily draw anaologies between the animal or human body and the car. But what makes an animal or a human being is not the body but the fact that they are alive. And the reason why they are alive is because they came from another living thing. The law is simple but beyond understanding. You can take this further and look at other aspects, like the fact that the living body can look after and heal itself while the car requires an external mechanic or owner to look after it. But these secondary facts stem from the primary and inexplicable fact, which is that living things are alive while machines are not. Any person with reasonable intelligence can become a mechanic, while it takes the best of us to become doctors, and we cannot even cure the common cold. Have you noticed how often the cures prescribed by our doctors require us to go home and rest? It is our bodies that do the curing, the medication only helps.

We may one day develop robots and computer programs that generate other robots and programs like itself. Do not be confused. These will be like our other inventions, poor copies of what we have discovered. Which is my final definition of the difference between discovery and invention: invention is often a pale copy of the original.

Take care of yourself, you are not an invention.