Name your choice of 5 inventions most benefiting humanity

Borg Quote:
!

How were people eating before the hoe?

Greatness does not require a reason, only an ego and a forceful conviction that puts everything else down. It's all in the attitude!


Before the hoe there were hardly any people.





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Hoes produce more people, which then produce more hoes. Crop cultivation is a vicious circle and a devious plot, but the real question is: which one produced the other? Are the plants actually in control? :-D

Perhaps humanity is the greatest invention of all, and the plants are designing their ultimate tool by giving us flowers and sustenance. Nature selects only the most agricultural humans.

Borg Quote:
!

How is this related to your comment, "Nature is scum"?

How is your comment on Nature as scum related to the intended subject of this thread?

It illustrates Ego, invention #5 on my list. A driving compulsion to be "Great" often involves separating and isolating ones self first, then putting down whatever Them you have artificially separated yourself from.

Because our thread focusses on "benefiting humanity", one way to approach the answer is to bring out this human-centric perspective.
What benefits human beings? What makes them so Great and arrogant, above everything else, above everything else in nature? By definition, that would be Ego.

I don't like it, but it is a valid answer. And the approach highlights some really interesting patterns in our society that I never considered before. Pretty cool!

1. Internet pornography

2. The Woodchuck shaped dildo.

3.Qualudes

4.Doc Johnson's Love Products (all of 'em)

5. The remote control.

BC pills

Did I mention beer?

Definitions: Invent, Discover, Contrive, & Instinct
CodeBorg, the topic of my post was about INVENTIONS, not discovering, contriving, or instinct.

The definition of "to Invent" is: to create; produce for the first time; originate; to contrive; fabricate; having creative imagination.

The definition of "to discover" is: To find out and make the existence of (something previously unknown); to learn of; detect. To DISCOVER is to find out that which we did not know as a certainty before, or that which we did not know existed at all. We DISCOVER new lands, new methods of treating or preventing disease, facts in general, new means of accomplishing old acts, unsuspected merits, hidden defects, etc. To INVENT is to devise new means for doing things previously done otherwise.

After the power of steam was DISCOVERED, the steam engine was INVENTED. The possibility of communication by radio was first DISCOVERED; since then, scientists have worked to INVENT means of utilizing this method of communication. To CONTRIVE is to find a way to do a thing or accomplish a purpose by a clever use or adaptation of the means at hand; to CONTRIVE is to plan ingeniously in the face of difficulty. The Swiss Family Robinson CONTRIVED to use what raw material they could find.

INSTINCT: Impulse; natural involuntary urging to any action; natural involuntary urging to any action; natural aptitude or skill.

-----BumbleBeeBoogie

Re: Definitions: Invent, Discover, Contrive, & Instinct

D'oh, did I just go off again? Sorry, ummm checking:
Hoe ... electic light ... automobile ... meditation ... ego ... humans. Check, check, check, uh ...



4) The art of meditation is a pursuit, an attitude or field of study. The idea that one can create their own self-realization. An activity. An exercise or process. It was created at some point. A comparable thing might be: the field of genetics, the art of painting, the sport of golf. So I guess meditation is an INVENTION. But it's borderline. It might come down to semantics, whether one means a general practice, goal, or method.



5) Ego? An attitude or perspective on things. One particular form of reality or understanding. One form of logic processing. A state of mind, not in its static quality but in its patterns. Often associated with particular moods, but is not a mood. Ego is a way of being. A way of thinking. It's unconsciously taught, inherited, learned and assumed. A cultural tradition ... is evolved, developed, discovered, applied, but not really created. Like, to solve a problem.

Ego is a good tool for war. Or for acheivement. When it's deliberately cultivated. But like the use of chaos, or the use of anger or joy, it's usually a subconscious state of mind. Only sometimes deliberate.

Oh. You are very correct sir! A cultural tradition is not an invention unless it's deliberately engineered like Scientology or Christmas. Those are inventions, and while the IDEA or USE of ego is an invention, the ego itself is not. When looking for things that help humanity (as opposed to helping the world) then I should look for the creative thought process.



6) Humans? When plants breed humans for their ability to feed them, that's just one way of looking at a whole system of evolution. Plants and humans are interdependent and the process of breeding better farmers is a natural, involuntary pattern, accident, instinct, process.

We DISCOVER breeding and use our particular intelligence to DEVELOP a featherless chicken, or fungus-resistant strawberry, and that result is an INVENTION because of conscious intent by an individual. Domestic cats and dogs were not invented.

When plants' own form of intelligence develop a more suitable breed of farmer, their conscious intent exists but it's more mechanical and involuntary and spread across an entire population of plants working together, ... so a better human is not an INVENTION.

I think you're correct again!





:-D Excellent issues! :-D

1) Can something be invented unconsciously?

2) If it's the work of two people is it still invented? 100 people? A million?

3) Does an invention have to be a physical item, or can it be an idea, method, or approach? Is the number zero an invention? The whole idea of Love? Is a new field of study, like nanotechnology?

Sorry, but English isn't my first language, so sometimes the nuances pass me by. Thank you!

Quote from Borg:

I think of inventions as things -- wheel, transistor, microscope,etc.
Many of the "great inventions" suggested are more like concepts, ideas, etc.

Anyhow, there is a solution and O'Toole has it. He and his buddies were discussing this very same subject except they were after the singlemost important invention. Fogarty suggested the wheel for all the obvious reasons. McNamara called Fogarty an idiot lost in the past and suggested the transistor as most important. O'Toole scratched his head and said the greatest invention of mankind was the thermos bottle. The thermos bottle?!!! This sent Fogarty and McNamra into paroxisms of laughter and derision. O'Toole calmly replied "No, think of it gentlemen. You put something hot in it and it stays hot. You put something cold in it and it stays cold --- How does it know?"

And then there was the time that Fogarty got a call from O'Toole. "Could you come around? I'm having a terrible time with this jigsaw puzzle, all the pieces are the same!".

"An' what might it be of?", asks Fogarty.

"A cockeral".

So Fogarty puts on his coat and goes over to O'Toole's. Takes one look at the table. "O'Toole, yer fookin' idjit - put those Corn Flakes back in the box!".

Preceding electron microscopes


Bumblebee,

You might find this of interest:

Prior to Hillier's invention of his 7,000x magnification power electron microscope, Sir Jagadis Chandra Bose had invented (c.1918) the forerunner to that microscope, known as a cresograph.

His cresograph was superior to the later electron microscope for two reasons:

1. it was capable of magnifying objects down to 10,000x,

2. it could automatically record the growth rates and changes of plants in as short as one minute!

5: Wheel and axle
4: Plough
3: Stirrup
2: Printing press
and the most important invention of all time.......

THE DRIP COFFEEE MAKER!!!!!!!!

Five most beneficial inventions




My five picks are:

* Shelters (house, tent, teepee, wikiup, etc.)

* bed furniture

* Alternating Current (w/o it there would be no computers, toasters, cell phones, radios, TVs, light bulbs, faxes, modems, etc.)

* cloth

* Abacus


Others I would've included:
* Zero (w/o which mathematics would've come to a screaching halt)

* writing implement (such as pens, pencils, etc.)

* thermometer

1) Ketchup
2) The squeeze bottle
3) Catsup
4) Fries
5) And also ketchup

Did I happen to mention beer?

Without the wheel, everything else would be moot.