Connecting The Idea Dots

In this Salon, Rohit Krishnan and Samuel Arbesman lead a discussion around how to better recombine ideas and encourage a broader cross-pollination across the landscape of humanity’s knowledge.

It seems a common worry that innovation is faltering. There are many explanations, from the declining fruits of knowledge, to ossification in our structures, to lack of cultural ambition. But the best inventions—cultural and technological—have been in multiple worlds. They’re born from combining unlikely sources of knowledge to create something new.

The best startups combine ideas lying around in unique Lego forms to better explore niches. The best scientific endeavors combine ideas, too—like Kekulé combining the artistic view of an ouroboros with chemical knowledge to come up with benzene’s molecular structure. Or when mRNA was suggested by Jacques Monod and Francois Jacob thinking in informational terms, later to be discovered at Caltech. Combining areas of knowledge seems to be uniquely helpful in breaking through stagnation!

If novelty is indeed to come from the recombination of ideas—in addition to just being plain fun—how can we encourage better surveying of the incredibly varied array of humanity’s collective will, and try to link ideas together? How can we link more interesting fields? Can we combine music theory and architecture? English studies and economics? Paleontology and AI? Let’s find out!

Suggested Readings:

• The Spark File
• Let’s Bring The Polymath — and the Dabblers — Back
• Tool for Thought
• Chaos in the Brickyard
• Atypical Combinations and Scientific Impact

Image credit: Wikimedia/Agostino Ramelli

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