Joe's Jottings

Jottings Number 70, Reply A, by David Hegarty

Date: Tue, 25 Feb 97 08:06:47 -0800

Necessity may well be the mother of invention, but it takes particular 
people in particular contexts to do the inventing.

By fulfilling one need we may effectively close off some avenues of 
enforced creative exploration, but we also open other opportunities. 
It was the inadequacies of post that prompted the invention and adoption 
of the telephone, and the limitations of voice only communication that 
lead to the development and popularity of the fax (any one for telex?). 
It was the storage of so much information in computers (and not in our 
heads, where people used to be able to remember thousands of things), 
that spurred on the development of laptops with CD-ROMs...

Of course this all begs the question of how necessary these necessities 
might be, but that is a different discussion.


To my mind, at the core of the matter is that the seed of creation lies in the 
individual's urge to create.  Our modern conveniences allow us the laziness to 
recreate where earlier we would have had no choice but to innovate, but they do 
not still our creative yearnings. In many cases the tools at our disposal 
increase the ease of creation. Freed from the need to type and spell 
meticulously, thanks to whoever created automatic correction and spell checking,
I can now dedicate myself all the more to the content of my messages.


Stood in Linz in 1997 Wolfgang Amadeus might well have had all his scores on a 
CD-ROM in his laptop, ready to be sent via a MIDI interface to a bank of 
synthesiser modules and samplers, sparing himself the trouble of writing, 
reproducing and rehearsing a new score (and using his time instead to see the 
sights and carouse).  But I think Mozart was rather the type to rise to such a 
challenge and satisfy himself in the production of a new symphony at short 
notice.


David Hegarty
HP Learning Products, 
Patient Monitoring Division.

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