Stairs: invention or discovery?

Invention and discovery are two concepts that make us think about the relationship we have with the things that surround us. To what extent do we invent reality or are merely its “discoverers”?

The stairs seem to have come up 2000 years before Christ. The Egyptians and the Hebrews were the first to build stairs. Curiously, initially, they were not even made to go up and down but to decorate tombs and monuments.

To Invent brings the assumption of creating something that doesn’t yet exist. But in the case of the stairs, it’s raw material, as well as the idea of ​​something that leads you up or down (humans knew mountains and rocks and trees), already existed. Humankind just needed to observe and realize — or, if you wish, discover — a new function for that. The only thing missing was that last brain synapse that gathered everything and thought “these stones that I stacked one on top of the other can be used to help us up and down other things!” And I think that’s precisely where the invention is at — in that last synapse. Innovating is not about taking something from thin dust (we live in a closed system — remember: nothing is created, everything is transformed, as Lavoisier said), but to take preexisting materials and ideas, and create a new idea or a new look aspect of that previous idea.

Do not take away the merit of the last human synapse, it changed (and it keeps changing) everything.