The Mind Discovers

 A discovery is adding to the knowledge base

Science to oneself is a mindset, it is a way of thinking, being consistent in crucial things that matter to that science. Anybody can have a scientific mind; it is merely about accepting facts and not being a hoax to win an argument. Hoaxes are a waste of time, leave or lower your standards. But when hoaxes threaten humanity, they must be confronted by any means at your disposal, genuine scientists are not about pulling wool over peoples eyes.  

Anybody who accepts facts and extrapolates in a logical manner from those facts can discover. It is as simple as that. From a chain of facts, accepting these facts, thus the relationships that are known to be associated with these facts asking the right questions will lead to original thought, and that original thought can be investigated. Being an original thought because of an original question should at the very least lead to a different perspective on the relationships involved. At its height the right questions do not just lead to a new perspective on understanding what is known but to a discovery, and a discovery is solving a problem.

A new perspective, a discovery leads to questions been answered, even questions that nobody asked before the discovery. If that no new questions arise, it is because people are not looking for those new questions or do not know how to ask those new questions.

Mind you, discoveries can very well be a coincidence, one is not really looking for that discovery, but still a discovery should always lead to answering unanswered questions as well as raising new questions. That microwaves can cook and warm up food was an accidental discovery. But it answered questions about the nature of the photon, the nature of light, a photon is the particle that gives us light. Our eyes are photon sensors. The monopole was an accidental discovery, nobody was really looking for it except in expensive laboratories paid for by governments and defense departments, but it answered questions about magnetism.

When a biologist goes into a forest and is tallying fauna there and they realize they have discovered a species of frog or insect that previously was unknown, unasked questions are answered, what is role of this species, how did it evolve, the genes must answer the question. Accidental discoveries have just as much impact as discoveries that came out of investigation. The human knowledge base is increasing. Even an accidental discovery needs the mind, it is the mind that identifies we did not know this species, wow, this is a monopole, so the mind must still investigate with accidental discoveries. The mind must still look at relationships and realize this is a different relationship where does it fall into place.

Discovery is all about the mind, accidental or not. Let us take the role of a detective or a spy. They must discern all the facts, all the relationships involved in those facts the detective can eventually point out with some degree of confidence, that is the one who did it, this is the evidence I can provide, these are the facts I can show, these are the relationships involved that led to this murder, look here is the evidence.

A good spy will tell his commanders these are the facts, these are the relationships involved, that is the friend, and no harm should ever come to him by our hand. Given all the facts a good spy will say weapons are flowing in from people who hate us, we must declare war, all out for our survival. A good spy who is proud of their duty will never accept a kangaroo court for opponents, they will provide evidence why somebody should be hanged. A kangaroo court is pure love and hatred, screw my enemy, a good spy is above that, they must look at the relationships and provide proof against an individual or a group. Once enough proof is given, and people can make counter arguments to doubt those relationships a good spy believes then there is enough evidence to take action and take out the opponent, the right thing to do, or people will just be dying everywhere for no reason, even if you hate them, that is not justification enough, an emotion. I mean if a random person supports a theft, she is part of that group, evidence.

A good judge, something throughout history that is very rare, a judgement is made through a cultural lens, an aristocrat has always been judged differently from a commoner, an inferior or a political opponent who is in the process of overthrowing evil, usually for the same reason, theft of life and time, robbery and swindling by the elite, telling falsehoods on a grand scale is swindling the people,  limiting people as sub human, how many freedom fighters have lost their heads throughout this long 300 000-year history of humanity because of a judge. Those rare, 1 in 10 000 judges, will look at evidence, look at the facts look at the relationships.

Centuries ago, the original people of Peru before the conquests of the Spanish found a way to cure malaria, a discovery, chloroquine. This was a discovery by those people looking for a cure, if it was from the gods, it would have been known 1000’s of years ago, not centuries ago. That means people, those associated and having a relationship with the Inca people investigated and accepting facts rejected and accepted types of medicine.

When it comes to medicine, to finding a cure, it was about trail and error, this doesn’t work, this works.  The original people of Peru understood this long before the coming of Cortez an absolute destroyer, bringing the word Latino to the Inca and those around them. The Inca are not Latinos, they are not from Europe no matter how much the doctrine of Cortez has attempted to destroy them, but people obviously very much capable of discovering. These are just facts and to have a scientific mind one must accept facts, like they understand that they have to eat to get energy.

When chloroquine began losing some of effectiveness because of widespread use, other methods were used to find a cure for malaria, trial and error again, and a cure came from China. Those in China used the same methods of trail and error as those used by the those around the Inca centuries before.

It is all about accepting the facts and relationships in front of you. Obviously from trial and error, those around the Inca understood the relationships that affected the human body from plants, that is why they eventually got to chloroquine. The methods Tu Youyou used to get her more advanced cure for malaria where the same as those used by the Inca centuries before. All these ideas come from a mind thinking, being allowed to think.

As it is the mind that discovers, one must take care of the mind. Even the most useless addicts can take care of their mind if they follow sound advice. “Proper food, proper exercise, proper sleep, proper wakefulness – these are necessary for any success.” This is a saying from Vivekavani. A discovery is the success in science, all the PHD’s and post doctoral stuff from the most prestigious universities, prestige a matter of dominant cultures not knowledge per se. All that is secondary to a discovery and will always be.

Be proper, at the very least do some form of exercise, jog, cycle, do tai chi, do yoga, do some boxing, swim, do combinations, but you need to destress, so you are grateful, I know it sounds silly to be grateful with nothing, or you have been robbed or cheated, but you have your mind to be grateful for and life.

You have to ask proper questions, that requires a healthy mind and it will be strong enough to go against canonized thoughts. Humans are taught to get food to be unoriginal and Fyodor Dostoevsky put this best, to quote, “Lack of originality, everywhere, all over the world, from time immemorial, has always been considered the foremost quality and the recommendation of the active, efficient and practical man.” Society is against discovering, as society believes they always know what they need to know and this usually comes from the establishment, the elites who are benefitting from the status quo.

Building a bridge requiring new techniques because of the new materials will be frowned upon by the profession. They get their food from knowing the old techniques, a new technique and materials is a threat to their energy supply, a threat to their food supply, their incomes. But one who has a clear mind, has forwarded new ways, has tested them can not afford the wrong meaning of being practical, observing the status quo for food, but they must be scientifically practical, practical in terms of knowledge and demonstrate the truth. Anybody can be an engineer, a doctor, economist, machine operator, physicist, it is about how a human being uses their time, that is why the correct knowledge given to one when they are young is important.

To discover you need to know the art of listening, do not have a ready answer, first listen, only by listening can we ask proper questions with some thought. People have known this for a long time. To quote Ernest Hemmingway, “Listen Now. When people talk listen completely. Don’t be thinking what you are going to say. Most people never listen. Nor do they observe.”  Hemmingway must have been frustrated with those drunkards who know everything, and pretend due to alcohol they are some sort of special something.

All these famous scientists have the answer, they believe they don’t have to listen, imagine a theoretical physicist believing they have all the answers with zero experimental proof and are cheered as the greatest minds, a con for food, one will never have an original thought, they have all the answers, way up there in their own minds mostly because of social status not mind power. They will fall mostly in the 99.99% of scientists who never discover anything, their only triumph success being a certificate from some institutions, all they can say is I studied under so and so at this university prestigious or not, if there is no discovery, a chemist from Zambia is equal to a chemist from Harvard. They are learning from the same books, even if one gets paid more, they are doing the same thing at the rubber factory in Liberia, New York, or Shanghai.

Talking about chemistry one understands that, a mind to be original sets up a method that is consistent. That is science. You either reaffirm, or bring the new, but the new should be able to be reaffirmed consistently. Take Theodore William Richards the recipient of the 1914 Nobel prize for chemistry. This what the Nobel website has to say about him, “The result of this labour has been that no less than thirty atomic weights have been redetermined with a degree of accuracy undoubtedly never before attained, and by the employment moreover of methods that, by comparison with those in earlier use, mark a very appreciable advance.

Twenty-one of the atomic weights referred to have been determined by Richards himself or under his immediate guidance, while the determination of the others has been carried out in accordance with his methods by pupils trained under him.”

We owe a lot to a mind that broke the rules and looked for better techniques to understand our universe. His techniques allowed others to see the truth about the universe, no doubt all starting from a personal theory because he listened to the universe and was able to ask the right questions without having the answers before hand, you can not learn anything like that you will just remain in your set ways when it comes to knowledge.

One can be as brilliant as they like according to their teachers, but discovery is not something one sets out to do, it can not be commanded, innovation can be commanded. One asks a question the correct question, the question has not yet had an answer. That is a sure way of being on the path to discovering. The discovery is smelting, how one smelts becomes innovation.

Though discovery and innovation are confused the two are not the same. One can only innovate on something that has been discovered, but the basic discover remains as is. Let us take the chemist Richards, 1914 Nobel Laurette, he discovered a technique, others innovated by applying his technique to be more accurate with other elements. Innovations are incredible mind you, no doubt, but a discovery leads to something completely knew to enter the knowledge base, something new that could be used in the creation of useful commodities.

A monopole is something that was not known, now that it is known, in time as a quantum phenomenon will find its way into quantum-based technology.

A 15 year old playing with electronic components who sees something nobody ever knew, like discovering a new way to use a telescope, has done more for science than an astronomer at Cambridge who kept on regurgitating the old way. An 80 year old who discovers a new chemical reaction that was under our nose the whole time has done more for science than most teachers at Yale.

Eventually a discoveries premise is there should be something here, what is it? That something there that must be there has to be backed by a theory, there is no other way to ask what is missing, and what will this missing thing prove, it proves a theory. Discovery is about going with the flow of the evidence then saying there should be something there, or to be even riskier, to say this must be this and the jigsaw fits better, but you must then prove it.

No one way if you have time and a source of food, remember for a cure you can test every plant extract on this planet, you will find something. I did a theory and went that route but every science is different. You can be finding new principles in a laboratory if one has resources everyday, just put things in different angles and test the results for examples, this is in physics of course. Not all discoveries are a critical point in knowledge, but they take us to a critical point in knowledge, thus if one understands knowledge at the end, a critical point of knowledge has as much value as what could be considered not a critical point of knowledge. Critical points just have to do with how our perceptions of the universe are changed.

Theories and ideas take time to prove. The idea of a black hole comes from Englishman John Michell back in 1784. In 1799 French scholar Pierre – Simon Laplace came to same conclusions as John Michell. Their ideas would be proved to be real when in 2019 the Event Horizon Telescope project managed to create an image from data. Look at the time. Einstein popularized the idea of black holes, but the idea was not his. It takes time sometimes, sometimes it happens in ones life time, best to do the best work you can do whilst alive. Just have a culture that respects knowledge, meaning it accepts change due to evidence.

If you are a scientist be a scientist, most great philosophers, or those considered great, there where many philosophers just as capable I am sure, but they just never rose in fame. Great philosophers will say you are what you think, that thought must be followed with action. Science is not difficult, the basics are difficult,  it requires patience at the end when it comes to discovering you either do or you don’t but both make humans aware of the universe. As long as one knows 28 plus 11 is equal to 39, and that wood floats, that mind can do science, could have done discovering. Don’t talk about money, that is not a super excuse, save and do science, buy test tubes and start. Rent an instrument.

Bhekuzulu Khumalo

 

 

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