[ExI] Rejecting Socrates

[David Lubkin]

Ben wrote:

>Well, if I'm inclined to, I can claim to have invented digital music 
>synthesis.  Except I didn't.  Someone else, at about the same time, 
>had the same idea, but they actually did something about it, whereas I didn't.

I'm talking about people who *did*. Nat didn't just have the concept;
the computer world uses his exact design and he was seminal in
its spread. He just doesn't get the credit.

In the case of my grandfather, someone else would have thought of
synchronizing a circuit to a clock signal sooner or later. But, again,
he didn't just "have the idea." He built the computer, for the National
Bureau of Standards; I have its faceplate on my mantle.

>Certain things just become obvious to many people at a certain point 
>in time.  I don't think it makes a great deal of sense to give all 
>the credit to one person who happens to have been the one that was 
>able to commercialise or popularise it.  We all stand on the 
>shoulders of not giants, but of other people standing on the 
>shoulders of other people, standing on.

I think that's overstating it. In a literal sense, we all rely on a string
of predecessors. Someone invented writing, for instance. And
it was obvious that someone would discover the structure of DNA
or invent a steam engine not long after these things happened.

On the other hand. there are people whose insights seem decades
or even centuries beyond their times. I can't say what would have
happened had they not lived, but it stands to reason the path of
history would have been very different.


-- David.