Discovery and invention are two types of relationships between humans and things. They’re traditionally opposed to one another; if not on opposite ends of a spectrum, they are thought to be categorically distinct.

In discovery, there is some pre-existing quality of the thing. The thing operates independently from humans. Then, someone noticed or came upon the thing and it turned out to be noteworthy or relevant for many people.

Classic discovery examples: dinosaur bones, gravity, chromosomes.

In discoveries, we can think of the human lifting up a silver plate cover or peeling back the curtain at some layer beneath. There is an element of reveal, of something that was there all along that we either didn’t or couldn’t have conscious knowledge of. The relationship is characterized by engagement on the level of observation, but little else. Our observation of the thing can be consequential, but it is incidental to the thing’s existence.

With invention, the thing cannot be said to have existed prior to our relationship to it. Our relationship to the thing is not incidental but constitutive. The relationship is one of creation, since the invention only exists because of an intervention on the part of humans.

First, I will attempt to demonstrate that the distinction between discovery and invention does not derive from a fundamental distinction between incidental and constitutive kinds of relationships. That is, the difference between discovery and invention cannot be said to be the difference between uncovering a pre-existing thing and creating the thing from scratch.

I argue this on fronts. First I posit that the human-object relationship is always constitutive of the object, whether discovered or invented. Second, I reduce both invention and discovery to the application of an apparent fact of nature for certain ends. Thus, I argue that invention and discovery are two conceptual terms that describe the same process.

I think that our notion of discovery is based on two notions: first, that it only involves observation; second, that the discovery operates independently of our observation of it.

The fact that it’s conscious knowledge is also important. Everyone before 0 A.D. who got punched in the gut had intimate knowledge of Newton’s Second Law, but they didn’t really know it. They didn’t know that they knew—that’s why it’s such an exciting reveal. That’s the lightbulb moment, which is ironic, since the lightbulb is a classic invention.

How can you not know that you know something? I would say it has to do with the information’s relevance to a third party.

Let’s take an example: you 

Classic invention examples: lightbulbs, atom bombs, the internet.