First Blog

 Innovation usually implies the search for something new, effective, and important. Many factors, dozens, contribute to innovation. Here are the top six. Open mindedness. (Approach) Constant absorption of new knowledge. (Building connections/frameworks) Ability to concentrate for long periods. (Necessary) Rapid rejection of poor ideas. (Key factor) Having a sustaining joy of problem-solving. (Experience) An active, intelligent, and coherent team. (A plus) ------------------- One potential problem with AI is that it locks in old knowledge and possibly rejects new knowledge – a consequence of learning algorithms.

Let us not confuse “that which is different” with the loftier concepts of “that which is innovative or creative.” Many are mere expressions of intellectual fraud, as though there isn’t enough fraud going around. Innovation studies – Nowadays there are full university programs offering degrees in innovation. As honey to flies, grants are available is why. Websites are available for all innovators, to infect those without ability with a perception they have it. Innovation studies programs are even available to youngsters aged 10-18.  Mostly, they just train folks about new stuff, though leaving them unable to contribute to it. For example, business innovation is little more than awareness of needs for better products and marketing. In brief, these programs mostly only teach “new” or “different.”  The world so craves new ideas that it invests huge sums to produce what will soon be called innovative nonsense. Futurists are their philosophers. Creative writing – Change the order of

We hear so often about innovation at whatever you do.  It seems to be the current brass ring to the next and greatest APP ever.  Websites are devoted to it. Papers are issued on what it is.  Lectures are given on how to do it.    There are even degree programs on achieving this illusive ability. One of the keys to invention is the so-called “thinking outside the box.” However, for innovation from outside the box, the first need is understand what’s inside the box. Namely, is your idea actually outside the box? In this connection, it is important to know your great new idea is not simply one that fails.  The alternative is to expend resources to determinine it doesn’t.  Wasted time! All new innovations I’ve ever heard of come from experts on the “inside, looking outside.”  You need some examples. a.     Pasteur and the application of germ theory to serious disease such as anthrax or rabies. b.     Object oriented programming as a method of accessing and using inform

What was and still is Dateline, 1850 and Now...   We have arrived at the point where professionals have a large amount of knowledge about particularly narrowing topics. The narrowing has constricted now for a couple of centuries.   As in the past, investigators become saturated.   For ancient geometers, this occurred a couple of  centuries BCE. They can know little more, and little more was contributed.   Until...   a new idea emerges, it becomes the hammer to resolve all questions. Older outmoded techniques are diminished, deprecated, and eventually forgotten. This is the model of scientific investigations and other objective disciplines.   When the new is judged as more powerful and more predictive, the old is discarded. All this is according to Thomas Kuhn.   Advance of knowledge is not linear, it is not even monotone. What are new ideas and from where do they come?   A number of forms seem obvious. Technique Innovation Enhanced precision Increased dimension Disc

We all talk about ideas, and how much we need a good one.  But an idea basically amounts to a direction change. Put this way, we pose whether a change in direction is needed, and moreover really wanted.  Thus...  It may be unproductive to seek for a new idea when none is needed. Indeed, such a search may point one in the wrong direction. Can it be a folly to innovate when such is unrequired? Different does not imply better. A little weird.  The other day I was watching a movie on NetFlix.  My settings showed the subtitles in English. I have become accustomed to reading them. But for some reason, the subtitles were a about two minutes delayed.   So, while I watched, the titles were two minutes or so behind, making them useless.  Interesting and unusual though it was, but after a couple of minutes I stopped watching them.   It occurred to me that suppose the subtitles were two minutes in advance.  This implies having a look on the subtitle channel into the future (of the movie).  T

The concept of consciousness is particularly ephemeral.  It has challenged philosophers, psychologists, physicist, and more.  It is difficult.  My approach to understanding a tough subject is to form a model that I can personally understand.  We have followed this desideratum here by indicating that consciousness is a collective of three aspects of intelligent life: self-awareness, problem solving, and innovation.  In defining consciousness, we seem to be challenging a problem for which any proposed solution generates new questions and new problems.   But, here we go... For us to define consciousness   leads to philosophical, psychological and emotional problems, as above and more.  One way to attack the problem is to propose what would constitute consciousness in a computing machine.  This has been well explored.  No consensus has been achieved.  In this note, we connect consciousness with  the subjects of self-awareness, problem-solving, and innovation. Each seems to be a new and