"You don't see radio changing gradually and suddenly become radar. #Darwin's theory doesn't work for #technology, and we have to make a new observation."
- W Brian Arthur at SFI today
#evolution #innovation #invention
"Novel technologies are constructed from existing technologies. These offer themselves as components for the construction of further technologies."
- W Brian Arthur at SFI today
#evolution #innovation #invention #technology #engineering #design
Unlike the two-parent #inheritance typical to (but not ubiquitous among) #complex organisms, #technology inherits features from n parents - a "vast ancestral #network" more like horizontal gene transfer networks in #bacteria.
W Brian Arthur on sumulating #invention on a chip:
Does #Archaeology support the Theory of the #AdjacentPossible - that #innovation is combinatorial, persistent, cumulative?
In short, yes. SFI's Tim Kohler on the #Paleolithic data of #technology #evolution & the #prehistory of the infamous "hockeystick" curve:
😉 @SAPIENS_org
#Economist Roger Koppl of @SyracuseU presents a model for the #AdjacentPossible at SFI.
Output = "a combinatorial explosion" or #singularity, albeit one that arguably occurred millions of years ago, or in the distant future (since the model doesn't specify t = 0):