1. Human invention began between 70,000 and 100,000 years ago.
2. The engine that kickstarted human invention: our mind system.
3. Instead of seeing things and events separately, we saw them as wholes.
4. We were able to do so using repetitive 'if-and-then' patterns of thought.
5. Soon, we grasped the concept of causality, by connecting cause and effect.
6. Then language fuelled invention to help articulate and manipulate new ideas.
7. Thereafter, our minds build out our empathy circuits, tying imagining + reasoning.
8. Together, they formed bridges between minds and enabled commerce with ideas.
9. This grand narrative of human invention owes it to a certain pattern-seeking gene.
10. Which psychopathology prof. Sir Simon Baron-Cohen links to the gene for autism.
11. In other words, it's the gene for autism that drove the evolution of human invention.
12. Which makes sense, for autistic people are predisposed to superior pattern seeking.
13. To philosopher Keith Frankish, our greatest invention is the invention of invention itself.
14. So to encourage invention is to appreciate our autistic mindset; it's our ingenuity switch.