I quite like this. While we experience our own thought process as unique, and see it that way in other people who come up with ideas we'd never have thought of, there is nevertheless an entire ecosystem around even the most brilliant genius.
I also think there's something about the nature of reality which suggests that if we try, we will eventually discover what is there to be discovered. As David Deutsch puts it, "everything that is not forbidden by laws of nature is achievable, given the right knowledge". Of course the "invention" is about discovering the right knowledge, in what order and how we come about that.
(And, to throw in a fun pet issue of mine, this infuriated me about Atlas Shrugged - the idea that solitary geniuses can invent mind-boggling technology and that therefore the rest of society needs to bow down to them. Like, no - once it was known that free energy could come out of the air, the world's scientists would be racing to reproduce this finding, and would probably do so in short order.)
I also think there's something about the nature of reality which suggests that if we try, we will eventually discover what is there to be discovered. As David Deutsch puts it, "everything that is not forbidden by laws of nature is achievable, given the right knowledge". Of course the "invention" is about discovering the right knowledge, in what order and how we come about that.
(And, to throw in a fun pet issue of mine, this infuriated me about Atlas Shrugged - the idea that solitary geniuses can invent mind-boggling technology and that therefore the rest of society needs to bow down to them. Like, no - once it was known that free energy could come out of the air, the world's scientists would be racing to reproduce this finding, and would probably do so in short order.)