250.50 Coincidental Nature of Discoveries

250.501 What often seems to the individual to be an invention, and seems also to be an invention to everyone he knows, time and again turns out to have been previously discovered w hen patent applications are filed and the search for prior patents begins. Sometimes dozens, sometimes hundreds, of patents will be found to have been issued, or applied for, covering the same idea. This simultaneity of inventing manifests a forward-rolling wave of logical exploration of which the trends are generated by the omni-integrating discoveries and the subsequent inventions of new ways to employ the discoveries at an accelerating rate, which is continually changing the metaphysical environment of exploratory and inventive stimulation.

250.51 I have learned by experience that those who think only in competitive ways assume that I will be discouraged to find that others have already discovered, invented, and patented that which I had thought to be my own unique discovery or invention. They do not understand how pleased I am to learn that the task I had thought needed doing, and of which I had no knowledge of others doing, was happily already being well attended to, for my spontaneous commitment is to the advantage of all humanity. News of such work of others frees me to operate in other seemingly un attended but needed directions of effort. And I have learned how to find out more about what is or is not being attended to. This is evolution.

250.52 When I witness the inertias and fears of humans caused by technic al breakthroughs in the realms of abstract scientific discovery. I realize that their criteria of apprehension are all uninformed. I see the same patterns of my experience obtaining amongst the millions of scientists around the world silently at work in the re alm of scientific abstract discovery, often operating remote from one another. M any are bound to come out with simultaneous discoveries, each one of which is liable to make the others a little more comprehensible and usable. Those who have paid-servant complexes worry about losing their jobs if their competitors’ similar discoveries become known to their employers. But the work of pure science exploration is much less understood by the economically competitive-minded than is that of inventors. The great awards economic competitors give to the scientists make big news, but no great scientist ever did what he did in hope of earning re wards. The greats have ever been inspired by the a priori integrities of Universe and by the need of all humanity to move from the absolute ignorance of birth into a little greater understanding of the cosmic integrities. They esteem the esteem of those whom they esteem for similar commitment, but they don’t work for it.

250.53 I recall now that when I first started making mathematical discoveries, years ago, my acquaintances would often say, “Didn’t you know that Democritus made that discovery and said just what you are saying 2,000 years ago?” I replied that I was lucky that I didn’t know that because I thought Democritus so competent that I would have given up all my own efforts to understand the phenomena involved through my own faculties and investment of time. Rather than feeling dismayed, I was elated to discover that, operating on my own, I was able to come out with the same conclusions of so great a mind as that of Democritus. Such events increased my confidence in the resourcefulness and integrity of human thought purely pursued and based on personal experiences.