My Idea - The Analogy Machine
Wednesday, December 26th, 2007Generic ideas. Idea templates. Not out of the box complete ideas, but rather generic concepts, taken from a wide variety of fields such as philosophy, the sciences, business, etc, stripped of specifics (though a book on this would give them as a history of the idea), so that it can easily be applied to different fields. This is similar to templates in C++ and other object oriented languages. Much of what makes many ideas great are in the logic structure. If an “idea” only applies to just one field, it may well be an observation, not an idea.
My machine will automate what polymaths of old (yes, they don’t exist anymore, though technology has made an unprecedented number of people think they are) did with their artful analogies. Much “innovation” is doing nothing more than this and I, myself, am good at tricking people into thinking I’m smart by, e.g., turning a joke from South Park into an insight into computer science. So take this as a warning, you people who think you’re smart - use your noggin, or I will replace you with a perl script.
Example forthcoming. Watch this space.