mathlee

In Where Good Ideas Come From, Steven Johnson studies how innovation comes about. Drawing inspiration from scientist Stuart Kauffman's concept of the "adjacent possible", Johnson argues that each new idea, each new innovation, opens up new possibilities and frontiers to explore. This therefore expands the "adjacent possible". (Yet, the concept of the adjacent possible also implies constraints - certain innovations are not possible until a series of intermediate innovations are in place). Johnson then goes on to explore the factors that open up the adjacent possible: - liquid networks where diverse individuals can interact with and exchange ideas with each other (e.g. in cities, MIT's Building 20); - creating conditions to slowly nurture and develop ideas (what Johnson calls "slow hunches") e.g. by writing everything down a la the Victorians with their commonplace books and Darwin's notebooks; - creating opportunities for serendipity, for the brain to make connections between seemingly disparate ideas e.g. by taking walks, by carving out dedicated periods to read a large and varied range of reading material, creating platforms for information sharing and exchange; - on a similar note, creating an environment conducive to exaptation, which Johnson defines as applying a process or technology used in one field to address a problem in a completely different field, e.g. Gutenberg's application of technology used for pressing grapes to print texts; - leaving room for "generative error" I used to think that reading fiction was about letting yourself get lost in the text, in the plot, in the characters created by the author, while reading non-fiction was about engaging with the author's theory/framing of an issue. Do I believe in and agree with the author's representation of the role played by salt/guns/germs/steel in human history? his views on urban design? on the Renaissance? But this dichotomy blurs when I read Steven Johnson and Malcolm Gladwell. In books like Outliers, Blink and the Tipping Point, Gladwell presents his theories on how success is achieved, how people make split second decisions and how ideas spread. In Where Good Ideas Come From, Johnson explores how innovation comes about. Both authors draw from a wide range of fields - psychology, sociology, neuroscience, etc - to make their case. And at the back of your mind, you wonder how robust the case they are making really is; how selective are they being in citing certain statistics, data points and anecdotes? This was certainly the case for me with Gladwell's Outliers, where he tried to construct a theory of success using a few compelling anecdotes but little more. And there were moments like this when I read Where Good Ideas Come From. Like in the final chapter "The Fourth Quadrant", where Johnson argues that we are seeing a shift in innovations stemming from non-market individuals (the predominant form of innovation during the Renaissance, when info networks are slow and unreliable and economic systems poorly developed) to non-market and networked based innovation. But this argument depends very much on what Johnson chooses to define as an innovation and how he decides to classify these innovations as market or non market based, individual or networked based. I also found it problematic that some of the issues that Johnson treats as distinct e.g. liquid networks (chapt 2), serendipity (chapt 4), exaptation (chapt 6) and platforms (chapt 7) are in some ways variations of the same theme - that creating the conditions for diverse elements to interact and learn from each other allows innovation to flourish. But you forgive Johnson (and Gladwell) for these flaws because they write beautifully. We may not be able to extrapolate their anecdotes to prove a larger point, but the anecdotes themselves are tightly written and pull you into them. You may not be won over by the logic, but you can be won over by Johnson's way with words and the narrative arc he has created. And some of the ideas and anecdotes that Johnson has pulled together in his book do stick - I found the notions of the adjacent possible and liquid networks particularly compelling. 4 stars for a week of absorption during my morning commute.

2023-07-16 05:06