19. Levels of Invention
When
self-service restaurants emerged, compared to service restaurants the order of
nodes, and details of their functioning, were changed into: entry, food
selection, paying, seating, eating, and leaving. If one does not know the new
script, and assumes that of a service restaurant, one enters and sits, and will
not get food. The altered sequence of activities has implications for the
nodes. For example: Selection is no longer done from a menu but by picking up
items on display.
In the item
on invention I employed a cycle of generalization, differentiation,
reciprocation, accommodation and consolidation. They can each be
clarified in terms of scripts.
In generalization,
i.e. application in a novel environment, an existing script is fed into a new
superscript. Think of an existing product in a new user environment. A bicycle,
for example, introduced to rough terrain, or to beaches.
In differentiation,
script structure and nodes are preserved but in one or more nodes a different
selection of subscripts is made from existing repertoires. Bicycle tires need
to be wide not to sink into soft soil.
In reciprocation
one borrows subscripts or entire nodes from other, outside scripts observed in
the novel environment. Bamboo bicycles have recently been developed in Africa,
to deal with local conditions. In Africa, bamboo is in ample supply, bamboo
bicycles are very light, and can hence easily be carried across obstacles, in
the heat, and due to easy speed there is less need for gears.
In accommodation,
one tries to eliminate obstacles in existing script structure for realizing the
potential or efficient use of new nodes, by changing the order of nodes or the
nature of their connections. Bamboo frames cannot like steel frames be welded
together, and require a novel technology for connecting and fixing parts of the
frame.
The logic
also indicates hat there are different levels of novelty: a new selection of
subscripts from an existing repertoire, or addition to the repertoire, or a
whole new node with its repertoire, or architectural change of script
structure. In invention one should also look at the superscript of the user
into which the invention has to fit. What changes of that script would the user
have to make to adopt the innovation? The more radical that change, the more
difficult it will be to have the innovation accepted.
Cognitively, scripts are embodied in neural
networks. Gerald Edelman’s ‘neural Darwinism’ seems a viable view of how
embodied cognition could work, in terms of neural networks. They arise more or
less by chance, in diverse, parallel and sometimes rival networks that compete
(hence ‘Darwinism’) for reinforcement, according to the frequency, speed and
continuity with which they are triggered, yielding easier passage of the
thresholds (synapses) between neurons and a greater density of connections with
other neuronal groups. New groups can arise from combinations between existing
ones. The simultaneous ‘firing’ of neurons can lead to novel connections:
‘firing yields wiring’.
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