A book in this line of thinking that has been helpful to me is Ken Stanley's 'Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned.' His incrementalism analogy is that of stepping stones.
For example, a crucial stepping stone in the invention of the computer was (of all things), the noble vacuum tube:
"In fact, if you were alive in 1750 with the objective of building some kind of computer, you’d never think of inventing a vacuum tube first. Even after vacuum tubes were first discovered, no one would realize their application to computation for over 100 years. The problem is that the stepping stone does not resemble the final product. Vacuum tubes on their own just don’t make people think about computers. But strangely enough, as history would have it vacuum tubes are right next to computers in the great room of all possible inventions—once you’ve got vacuum tubes you’re very close to having computers, if only you could see the connection. The problem is, who would think of that in advance? The arrangement, or structure, of this search space is completely unpredictable."
I often find this true in my life as well. Looking back, it becomes clear the series of unrelated steps God used to produce a certain effect or situation. Looking forward? Much less clear. That's where the fun is...
A book in this line of thinking that has been helpful to me is Ken Stanley's 'Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned.' His incrementalism analogy is that of stepping stones.
For example, a crucial stepping stone in the invention of the computer was (of all things), the noble vacuum tube:
"In fact, if you were alive in 1750 with the objective of building some kind of computer, you’d never think of inventing a vacuum tube first. Even after vacuum tubes were first discovered, no one would realize their application to computation for over 100 years. The problem is that the stepping stone does not resemble the final product. Vacuum tubes on their own just don’t make people think about computers. But strangely enough, as history would have it vacuum tubes are right next to computers in the great room of all possible inventions—once you’ve got vacuum tubes you’re very close to having computers, if only you could see the connection. The problem is, who would think of that in advance? The arrangement, or structure, of this search space is completely unpredictable."
I often find this true in my life as well. Looking back, it becomes clear the series of unrelated steps God used to produce a certain effect or situation. Looking forward? Much less clear. That's where the fun is...
Amen. Step by step...and its corollary: Plod on...plod on...plod on.