TB: Discovery is Easy With the Right Context

In hindsight, new ideas often seem obvious — because the imaginative leap required was not large given the right context. It is context that makes discovery possible. When the cultural and intellectual environment has loaded the necessary preconditions, a discovery becomes inevitable; when it hasn't, the same idea is inaccessible.

This model explains several puzzles: why great ideas arrive simultaneously to multiple people (the context ripens for everyone at once), why serendipity is productive (physical book browsing and wide-ranging conversation create non-trivial context collisions), and why the most productive thinkers tend to have wide-ranging interests (breadth maximizes collision surfaces). The implication is that cultivating diverse context is not a luxury but a prerequisite for discovery.

• Discovery is easy with the right context (source note): Culture as shared context — "the time is right" for an idea when the culture has loaded the correct context. Serendipity as productive context collision.
• Six Thinking Hats (de Bono): Cross-referenced — the thinking hats are a tool for deliberately loading different contexts.

• Context Matters
• The Bentham Horizon
• Generator Filter