Wednesday, August 17, 2016
So Many Possibilities?
After finishing reading Where Good Ideas Come From, the chapter that caught my attention and interest was the first one that explained the adjacent possible. I was amazed by this idea that was described by Steven Johnson as "a kind of shadow future, hovering on the edges of the present state of things, a map of all the ways in which the present can reinvent itself"(31). Johnson believes the wonderful thing about the adjacent possible is how the boundaries keep growing as long as people keep exploring them. However, a negative outcome I saw from the adjacent possible was how only certain changes are capable during certain times. Even though phenomenal innovations can happen at any given moment, there is a limit on the specific changes that can occur. For instance, some innovations aren't capable during particular time periods like when Babbage was building a machine for the electronic age during the steamed-power mechanical revolution. Babbage's invention would not thrive until one hundred years later because he went ahead of the adjacent possible. Therefore, the adjacent possible limits changes but also allows all the possible transformations during a given time period. Do you think we are also trying to go beyond the adjacent possible? Are we trying to invent things that aren't currently possible right now? What do you think of the adjacent possible?
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As Steven Johnson talks about, the possibilities are endless when ir comes to new ideas and inventions. But the problem of the matter is our inability to overcome Hunches and River Networks to become great. A good idea doesn't usually, as stated by Johnson, come in a sudden Eureka moment. We are now in days trying to skip these steps and trying to seek out that one idea that can automatically change the world. But it doesn't work this way, instead, it works through a system of trial and error. Without trial and error, the new invention or idea is doomed to imperfections and many dflaws. We should give ideas time before blurting them out, instead, look and examine the possibilities for error in these inventions or ideas.
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