1. Human invention began between 70,000 and 100,000 years ago.
2. The engine that kickstarted human invention: our pattern-making mind.
3. Instead of seeing things and events separately, we were seeing them as wholes.
4. We could do this by using a type of repetitive ‘if-and-then’ pattern of thought.
5. Soon, we grasped the concept of causality by connecting cause and effect.
6. This led to language, which helped us articulate and manipulate new ideas.
7. Our minds then built out empathy circuits, linking imagination with reason.
8. These circuits formed bridges between minds and enabled the trading of ideas.
9. This grand narrative of invention traces back to a single pattern-seeking gene.
10. Psychopathologist Sir Simon Baron-Cohen links it to the gene for autism.
11. In other words, it’s the gene for autism that drove the evolution of invention.
12. Which makes sense, as autistic minds are wired for superior pattern-seeking.
13. Philosopher Keith Frankish calls our greatest invention the invention of invention itself.
14. So to encourage invention is to appreciate the autistic mindset. It’s our ingenuity switch.