In gratitude to Robert King Merton, who decided at the age of 91, just one year before his death, to publish the manuscript of: “The Travels and Adventures of Serendipity�, 44 years after it was completed in 1958.
Serendipity Manual
Ideas Questions and Answers
An idea is only original when both the question and the answer are new.
The Palchinsky Principle
How to address a relevant question without an obvious answer? Seek out new ideas and try new things. Try them out at a scale where failure is survivable. Learn from your mistakes as you go along.
When asking around does not provide a satisfactory answer, the question is a worthwile challenge.
Answering a question is only worthwile when the world changes, if answered.
Not every question you can dream up is worth answering.
Imagination is the process of bringing to mind things that are not present to our senses. Without imagination no idea will come about.
Creativity is the process of developing original ideas that have value.
After bringing to mind new things, creativity has to be fostered.
Being creative always involves doing something. Creativity is not only about developing ideas, but it includes judging them.
Innovation requires imagination first and creativity second otherwise it will not take place or exist.
Discoveries and Inventions
Kaufman - Holland thesis of Complexity
The ideal way to discover paths through a shifting landscape of possibilities is to combine baby steps with speculative leaps.
Moderate, not over the top or blind, optimism, even not totally justified, about future events, serves as a healthy motivation towards the attainment of future goals.
Recognizing a ’true’ discovery
A true discovery represents a breakthrough that was unanticipated by the discoverer but has direct relevance for a subject that was under study most likely by the discoverer him of herself.
Looking at a ’true’ discovery
The discovery is ’true’ when the observation done surprises you because it is inconsistent with prevailing theory or it brings facts to the table that opens new roads.
The road of the ’true’ discovery has to lead to someplace important.
The road that is newly opened should not be a cul-de-sac but lead to a strategic place with opportunity of generalization.
Putting all your eggs in one basket is a far better route to breakthrough invention than not doing so. But do not forget when a pivotal discovery is made, to move all your eggs to a new basket.
Invention is a strange business. Is it creative, like painting or sculpture? It’s certainly original, by definition genuinely new, but it’s also fundamentally practical.
Is invention, then, scientific? Many inventions today are explicitly derived from scientific discoveries. Fire was a discovery; the fireplace was an invention. That fire hardened clay was a discovery; pottery was an invention.
That invention is different from fine arts or scientific discovery suggests that inventors may be different from artists or scientists. They are. Many inventors are technically trained, of course, especially those who invent professionally. Some inventors have been artists. The same person may do science and invent.
... many inventors, past and present, have been people with no obvious qualifications for inventing. Come to think of it, there are no special qualifications for inventing. No school I know of offers such a degree. As a sculptor is someone who sculpts, as a writer is someone who writes, an inventor is someone who invents.
Best Guesses Hunches and Beliefs
Best guesses
Start out with the assumption that there is a fifty-fifty chance of being correct. Add more and more clues, pieces of evidence as small as a single ’ban’. When the odds increased to fifty to one, one has to assume that the last guess is the best guess and predicts the outcome with more or less certainty.
The hunch
Quantifying the odds that a guess is more than less educated. The ban: �about the smallest change in weight of evidence that is directly perceptible to human intuition�. Turing
Find the shortest way to the best guess.
We can learn even from missing and inadequate data, from approximations, and from ignorance.
By updating our initial beliefs with objective new information, we end up with new beliefs connected more firmly to reality than before.
Having original ideas and making new things is all about serendipity, but serendipity means a lot more than you can imagine.
Learn to be serendipitous
Are there two kinds of people: the serendipitous and the non-serendipitous? Do you want to be one of the unwise or the unlucky while with a little bit of work you can tip the scale?
You do not know what serendipity is, till you experienced a truly serendipitous thought and you made something accordingly.
Serendipity is two things in one: the road to breakthrough discovery the way of the discoverer
Faculties Habits and Gifts
Serendipity defined in 1949 by Partridge
The faculty or the habit of making felicitous discoveries by accident. Because serendipity is defined as both, faculty and a habit and since habits may be acquired, one must be able to learn or to cultivate serendipitous thinking.
Serendipity defined in 1952 by Weekley
Gift for finding one thing when looking for another. Using the word ’gift’ here indicates that some have it and others may not. And when you are ‘gifted’ whatever you look for, you are able to find something different but valuable.
Serendipity defines in 1952 by Swann
The sheer luck or accident of making a discovery by mere good fortune or when searching for something else. The use of the words ’sheer luck’ as well as ’mere good fortune’ suggest that no purposefull activity can force serendipity to occur and that is not true.
Serendipity defined in 1955 by Shipley
The faculty of making happy finds. The beauty of this definition is in the adjective ‘happy’ as in both fortunate and turn for the better.
The Final Touch of Serendipity in 1958 by Merton & Barber
That happy blend of wisdom and luck by which discoveries are made not quite by accident. Here the genius is in using a blender to mix ’wisdom’ and ’luck’ to suggest that the wise are more lucky than the unwise.
The Final Touch of Serendipity in 1958 by Merton & Barber
That happy blend of wisdom and luck by which discoveries are made not quite by accident. The phrase ’not quite by accident’ indicates that it all happened somewhat by accident as in ’sheer luck’ but not at all totally by chance.
More luck than wisdom is not a happy blend. The happy blend appears to be fifty-fifty luck & wisdom.
The one attribute of the ’true’ discoverer: Wisdom. The other attribute of the ’true’ discoverer: Luck.
Wisdom and Luck
Wisdom
Deep understanding of things, situations, events or people to an extend that it leads to the ability to choose, act or inspire.
Wisdom represents the comprehension what is true or right and therefore reflects sound judgement.
What makes wise decisions so hard is that they must be taken in the murk of uncertainty and ambiguity, thereby clouding our ability to make clear evaluations.
Wisdom produces the optimum results with a minimum of time spend, or energy or thought and as a consequence is the capacity to make the best use of knowledge.
Wise men and women know how to map out a trip in uncharted territory.
Luck comes in two flavors: good and bad. Good or bad luck is unexpected and brings up three questions: Why, Why now and Why me?
Having Luck does not necessary mean being Lucky.
Having Luck is admired, may looked upon with jealousy and can be considered a merit because the lucky one worked hard and paid his or her dues.
Being lucky ( or being unlucky ) implies what happened was totally accidental, could not be repeated and Is therefore suspicious because the lucky ( or unlucky ) one might not have paid its dues.
Having Luck versus Being Lucky
Compassion for the unfortunate hinges, implicitly or explicitly, on the demonstrability that their ill luck could not have been prevented by ’reasonable’ efforts and precautions.
Admiration for the fortunate, in turn, depends on the demonstration that they have not been ’merely lucky’. The moral discomfort connected with mere good luck is evident when the lucky individual reminds his ’judges’ that, after all, he had his share of bad luck in the past, over the long run, as it were, justice is being done.
To be considered lucky is undesirable, it implies that achievements are really undeserved and that the lucky individual cannot be counted on to perform reliably. ( if he is just lucky, luck might easily desert him )
When serendipity is used to detract from the individual’s reputation, the factor luck is stressed, and is coupled with such qualities as passivity, irresponsibility, pretention and unreliability. If the individual succeeded, it is alleged it was by luck alone, luck which he had no reason to expect, which he has no right to take credit for, and which will not come his way again.
When having serendipity is considered meritorious, the component of luck in serendipity is minimized; when serendipity is regarded as discreditable, the factor luck is thought to be of paramount importance.
... when serendipity is used to enhance the reputation of an individual, the component of luck is made dependent on qualities that are unambiguously admired.
Luck or chance, according to these formulations, does not favor people at random; rather it is prepared minds who are able to benefit from luck, and to preparedness may be linked such qualities as alertness, flexibility, courage, and assiduity.
Only the able and virtuous are lucky in the field of discovery, just as on the battlefield fortune favors only the brave.
Master of Making New Things
How to be a master in making new things: learn to be wise and be prepared to have luck choose a subject begging for a breakthrough be sure that solving the issue at hand transforms the field
inspire friends to help out and never bore them be as studious as you can be be passionate, free from dogma and dare to take an unconventional stand be constantly on the alert, never lose sight of where you want to go ...and the moment of epiphany will be yours.
Robert K. Merton & Elinor Barber The Travels and Adventures of Serendipity Princeton University Press Princeton, NJ, 2004 Ken Robinson Out of Our Minds, Learning to be creative Capstone Publishing Chichester, UK, 2011 Sharon Bertsch McGrayne Page The theory that would not die: how Bayes’ Rule Cracked the Enigma Code, Hunted Down Russian Submarines, and Emerged Triumphant from two centuries of controversy Yale University Press New Haven, CT, 2011 Stephen S. Hall Wisdom: from Philosophy to Neuroscience Alfred A. Knopf NY, NY, 2010 Richard Rhodes Hedy’s Follow: The life and breakthrough inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the most beautiful woman in the world Vintage Books, NY, NY, 2012
Tim Harford Adapt: Why Success always starts with failure Farrar, Straus and Giroux NY, NY, 2011 Steven Johnson Where Good Ideas Come From: the Natural History of Innovation Riverhead Books NY, NY, 2010 Jon Gertner The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of Innovation Penguin Press NY, NY, 2012 James D. Watson Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in science Alfred A. Knopf NY, NY, 2007
©
Jaap Goudsmit jaapgoudsmit.nl
Hartmut Kowalke kowalke@xs4all.nl
Béla Zsigmond belazsigmond.com
ISBN 978-90-820082-0-3 Print Ando, The Hague