Imagine all of human knowledge as a tree. The great Greek philosophers are near the trunk, providing a structure to analyze and grow our knowledge in new and more meaningful ways. Today, our thought leaders branch out and extend our knowledge to new heights as the furthest reaching branches.
Their concepts are the most compelling and thought-provoking ideas we've heard. The reason for this is because we, as a populous, can understand their concepts since they are built from the same foundational tree of knowledge from which our knowledge stems.
Now imagine the smartest person in the world. That person is so far beyond the current scope of knowledge that they are nearly non-sensical. They are a leaf blowing in the wind, not attached to any branch. We cannot understand their concepts because their knowledge is beyond our own knowledge.
This structure can explain a fair amount of common trends you may see around the professions of our society:
- The fastest-growing companies in the world are generally small tweaks to the companies which were the best in the world previously. Tesla is the same as any other car brand, but electric. They are not, for instance, a flying car company.
- Societies almost always grow through a series of "evolutions" rather than true "revolutions". With few exceptions, new governments that rise after full blow revolutions tend to backslide into their old ways, just with new leaders. Even the US's revolution was a slow process that took 30 or so years to develop.
- Artists who become famous after death, are generally considered to be "before their time". Their knowledge surpasses other people in their day, but the knowledge tree grows to encapsulate their concepts in time.
Understanding a new leaf of information is only half the battle in building novel thoughts. The other half is meticulously connecting these thoughts back to the tree.