(2021-12-10) Johnson Seven Types Of Serendipity

Steven Johnson: Seven Types of Serendipity. “One thing a person cannot do, no matter how rigorous his analysis or heroic his imagination,” the Nobel laureate Thomas Schelling once observed, “is to draw up a list of things that would never occur to him.” (Unknown-Unknown) Schelling’s original point was part of a larger argument defending the intellectual exercise of wargaming. (wargame)

so much of trying to think imaginatively is figuring out ways to trick your brain into coming up with an idea that would have not occurred to it otherwise.

how do you surprise yourself? What part of your workflow supports unplanned discoveries?

In the last installment of this series, I made a passing reference to the ReadWise daily email algorithm as a “serendipity engine.” ((2021-11-19) Johnson Capturing And Colliding)

When I was first sketching out the chapter structure for Where Good Ideas Come From, serendipity was one of three topics I knew I had to devote a whole chapter to. (One of the others, the Darwinian concept of exaptation, is a close cousin of serendipity, for reasons we’ll see.)

got me thinking about the subcategories of serendipitous discovery

came up with six:

The Fleming Maneuver

creative potential in disorderly work environments

The Swerve In the Stacks

you go to Wikipedia to figure out some technical detail and follow a few links and suddenly you’ve stumbled across something that completely surprises you.

The Post-it Note Epiphany

3M scientist Spencer Silver trying to invent a super-strong adhesive in the late 60s, accidentally concocting the exact opposite: a weak adhesive that would allow you to attach and re-attach a piece of paper in different places — ultimately giving rise to Post-It Notes.

Brilliant Mistakes.

I think this happens to songwriters constantly — someone hits a wrong note by mistake, and it opens up a whole new set of possibilities for the song

New Neighbors

new geographic location triggers new connections

Exaptation

someone happens upon some idea or technology in one field, and ports it over to another seemingly unrelated field.