innovation

To change the world one has to do the things differently. For example one has to approach the traditional problem of intelligence with just the basic understanding of what intelligence is.. I had written somewhere else that more the knowledge about a particular subject the more you are going to be prejudiced about that subject and hence a drastic world shattering innovation is going to get hampered.

To improve a particular field, one need not be a Ph.D in that field. He just has to be someone who has 1) inclination to innovate 2) Good in multiple fields. I will elaborate upon how these factors are going to affect the innovation itself.

1) inclination to innovate :
WEll, to say the least, this is one of the factors. If you do not have the ability to notice the details of things how do you expect to come up with a new way of doing the same thing? Plain and simple isnt it.. If you are not looking for something at all, how can you know that something is important when you stumble upon it.. Only when you have the faculty to discern something and find out if it is for the real and is supported by empirical facts will things turn out to be innovations.. if newton hadnt questioned and struggled for an answer as to why did the apple fall down instead of going up or staying there, we wouldnt have somethign called as gravity, isnt it? By inclination to innovate I mean the ability to question even the most basic things.. Also an ability to question even postulates and trying to reason out for oneself if they are actually true. Only people who question such things can innovate.

Only when you are looking to innovate can some innovation happen in most cases.. its pretty rare that you are actually doing something and finally something else happens and you call it an innovation.. Only when you are in a constant look out for better ways to do things.. will better ways to do things surface...

2)Good in multiple fields / versatality :
The more someone is good in different fields, the more he / she can bring in the knowledge of that particular field to another.. if a lot of people talk in a particular language.. the more rich the language becomes over time. This is because a language grows by adding words from other languages and also by making mistakes in usages.. So people of different kinds of nature like each others company because each one brings one useful trait into the friendship which is not found in the other.. This is a very traditionalistic view but I believe this is how it is.. Only when you bring knowledge from one field and apply that to some totally different field can the field grow.

I have also suggested that not knowing about a particular field helps you rather than cripple you in doing something huge and important in that field.. I think so because the more you know about a field the more deeper you get into that particular field and it therefore becomes more and more difficult to see something in a totally new light or view.