how to invent something

[sushi]

who here is a pseudo inventor

how do you invent something or use of a material

as i have stated before in the materialism thread, the value and use of a material depends on form, function, effect, experience.

so to invent a new product or technology, you would have to give it the the above 4 traits.

of course this is only my subjective point of view, and nonetheless not comprehensive.. Please share your experience and knowledge of inventions, and how past inventions will build into new future technology and inventios.

 

[Cognisant]

Don't talk about "inventions" or being an "inventor" as the term has some stigma around it, not for any good reason it's just out of fashion at the moment, the cool terms are "startup" and "cloud based" and "entrepreneur". Getting investors is very much about fitting a certain image, it's like wearing a suit to an interview and speaking with a uptown accent, it's stupid but investors have a lot of potential investments to sort through so if you're not willing to play their game that already tells them you might not be 100% serious about your business.

Fundamentally every product solves a problem, that might be a practical problem like peeling potatoes without cutting yourself (hence why everyone has a potato peeler and doesn't just use a knife) or it could be a more ephemeral problem like being bored (video games) or wanting to impress people (name brand clothing). What's important is understanding the problem your product solves and whether or not an existing product already solves that problem in a more effective, more efficient or more convenient way.

To come up with a product you can either look for a problem to solve, or look for new and existing technologies and consider how else they could be utilized.

A door with a camera in it that recognizes its owner's face and unlocks the door automatically is potentially useful but it only works for the owner and only if their face is recognizable and the keyed lock already solves this problem very effectively without those limitations, so you wouldn't be able to see this product to most people, it would only be applicable to places that require a higher than normal level of security.

But that's fine, you don't need to sell you product to everybody, if you product is only worthwhile to 0.1% of people in a world of seven billion or so that's about seven million people and if you sell seven million extra security doors at a profit of about $10 per door that's a profit of about 70 million dollars.
That's not bad.

 

[BurnedOut]

1. Imagine your final product
2. Enumerate the types of knowledge required
3. Get thorough with the basics which are required to build that thing.
4. Look at existing models and try to gauge their flaws and advantages
5. Start thinking on ways to fix those problems.
6. Pray that you will get an intuition which solves that particular problem and furthermore get additional intuitions regarding a novel design that works

It is often assumed that inventing something requires some imagination skills and will power. That is not the case. You need to free your brain from doing the processes of reinventing the wheel and other rudimentary mechanisms (unless you are irked by a rudimentary mechanism in the first place). When you have sufficient knowledge and a free mind, you can be ready to unleash your creative potential. Now, how you will achieve that flow state is a difficult question to ask. For that, you need to be brain-disciplined and work out the brain by conditioning it to a variety of other knowledge. Creativity is partly experience and party randomness although the randomness part plays a small but a very crucial indispensable role.

eg [a shitty example] Detective enters the scene, there is a lot of blood on the floor and a relatively small wound on the victim. The victim is not bruised nor battered but the mark on the wrist suggests that it was not suicide either because there were no hesitation marks above and below the cut. It looked very clean.

Now if an ordinary detective arrives at the scene who is armed with nothing but only police experience would think for some time and conclude that it is not a suicide due to lack of hesitation cuts but then be baffled at looking at the amount of blood on the floor. He would then wait for the investigation of the forensics to conclude and continue.

Now, suppose there is another detective who is well-read and routinely observes the medical procedures with greater amounts of concentration than the supramentioned detective, he will understand the victim was hung upside down and drained through the veins and hence the blood and will try to search for scratch marks on the floor or on the ceiling or both and may also probably check of rope marks on his feet. Somewhere, his medical knowledge rang a bell when he was thinking - blood, veins, so much blood, gravity, aha! Drainage! Perhaps he heard 'draining' somewhere at the hospital and noticed something but nevertheless, that random bit helped him.

Now, tell me, if that same creative thought was that hard to conjure. It was not, seemingly so, but it was.

Therefore, remember, creativity = a bit of luck + experience + random knowledge.

 

[scorpiomover]

who here is a pseudo inventor

how do you invent something or use of a material

as i have stated before in the materialism thread, the value and use of a material depends on form, function, effect, experience.

so to invent a new product or technology, you would have to give it the the above 4 traits.

of course this is only my subjective point of view, and nonetheless not comprehensive.. Please share your experience and knowledge of inventions, and how past inventions will build into new future technology and inventios.

A few tips:

1) Start with something practical that will improve your life.

Usually, if it makes your life better, then it will make lots of other people's lives better who have the same problem, and with 7,800,000,000 people on the Earth, the odds are very high that millions will have the same problem if it's common, and thousands will have the same problem even if it's extremely rare.

If, however, you're not doing it for yourself, then you're dealing with theoretical problems that usually don't occur IRL, and then those who might have a demand for your gadget will immediately see that it addresses lots of problems that don't need solving, and omits many that need solving before the demand can be satisfied.

2) Keep refining it, improving it, etc. The better it gets for you, the better it will be for all the people with the same problems. When you think your improvements won't improve things for you anymore, odds are high that they won't improve things for anyone else either.

3) Focus on feature-related, practical improvements.

You need a practical measure to know if things have improved.

Test, test, test.

If you have an idea, test it first. Half the time, the idea doesn't work in the first place.

4) Versions.

You'll go through several versions before you get something good. Take a look at the different versions of your favourite products. They tend to be something like 1.23.205.

The first number is the actual version.
The 2nd number is the feature number, the number of features that they had to add before they had something that was worth releasing as a new update.
The 3rd number is the version number, the number of different versions they had to work through to get to last working version.

So understand, that to get to version 1 of the software, they had to make 23 different features, and to get feature 23 working, they had to go through 205 different versions before they got feature 23 working well enough that it was worth releasing.

5) Try it out with different people. Work with the types of people who would probably use it. If they like it, odds are good that other potential clients like that person would like it as well.

 

[sushi]

these are good inputs

it is far easier to deconstruct and take apart something like a old invention, and find a new way to rebuild and improve it

it all goes back to principle of form + function/purpose+ effect + experience. This is the basis of how humans use materials and tools.

if i want to invent a new weapon such as a better gun, i would try to focus on its function/purpose and effect.

or find a substitute or alternative, ways to make something happen/ doing the same thing

 

[onesteptwostep]

A good invention is a 'thoughts reader' that would jot down your thoughts without the use of an expression utility, such as a pen or a keyboard. This way, we humans would come to understand faster the futility of prolonged thought, and that it should be balanced with lived experiences.

Kant says it well: “Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play.”

But as someone who indulges in the biography of philosophers, it's not really my cup of tea to follow in the footsteps of Kant. Living in one city, without marriage and kids, dying so that one day your philosophy leads to a chaotic nation which swallowed and cannibalized its pride and identity.. the sorrowful tale that is the nation of Germany.

I think one invention that may be useful would be an AI narrator who would summarize your day for you, with a British voice. You would hear your own day narrated as if a friend was retelling your day for you. Preferably before bed. Kind of like a modern day diary, but automated.

...

...I must be pretty damn lonely to even think this up!

 

[sushi]

the key word is probably alternative

alternative way to do something and make something happen

 

[crippli]

Excacly. Something I didn't invent. But profitable.a propellor. They charge like 10 dollars (spesial material, for milk, for people). I made it for 0.1 doĺlars and less. One tiny setup 3d from china. It works. So if you need something. I can probably make it . Plastic.ip to abs. Metal is not as cheap

 

[sushi]

@onedoorstep , i think having our thoughts open to other people, or reccording it is a good invention. i support it as that in our society, we keep too much to ourselves and not share and communicate with other people.

For now, the only medium and outlet of thought communication is only through the internet.Perhaps in the future, there would be a way to communicate, thought sharing and think other than through the mouth and talk, such as thought reading other people and artificial telepathy. It would increase our understanding with other people.

But then again, it would lead to whole range of privacy issues and etc.