The Adjacent Possible

By Busari Hammed A.

   Charles Babbage had the blueprint to modern computer but it was too complex for his time. It would have taken complex mechanical parts moving in sequence for his computer to work. This would be too slow to have any value, moreover, it would be too cumbersome and a single computer would need acres of land to house it. Charles’ idea never reached anywhere.

    It was until the 21^st century after the discovery of electricity that modern computing was possible. Electric currents could now carry the information needed instead of complex and cumbersome moving machine parts. Today, many houses have at least a computer on their desktop. In reality of this, Babbage’s idea did not fail because it was not smart or useful; in fact it did not even fail. It never worked out   because it was way too ahead of his time.

     Many ideas don’t work out because they are not in league with available resources and many workable ideas don’t come out because either the resources available are limited or their owners don’t know how to combine the resources optimally. This is an important lesson every scientist must bear in mind.

     Many third world nations immediately wake up someday and start talking about moving forward technologically and industrially. But what they leave out of such dialogue is how generate more resources and how to optimally combine these resources. As a result, such forward drive only drives them backward. If these countries like Nigeria don’t start talking about “OPTIMALLY” developing their human resources (scientists,economists,philosophers etc) and “OPTIMALLY” make use of these human resources to generate more resources and “OPTIMALLY” combine these resources to generate new and better things,ideas,procedures etc. They are going nowhere.

    Nigerians intellectuals don’t contribute anything because they lack resources, and they don’t know how to get them nor do they know how to combine the too little resources available. This explains why the arts blossom more in Nigeria as their resources are readily available-all they need is imagination.

     The idea of the adjacent possible is like a room with doors, you open a door to the next room to find a even larger and more numerous doors. But if you don’t find the first you cannot discover the next and the better and larger ones hidden behind.

    Any individual, nation, scientist or organization hoping to make any improvements to himself, herself, itself or the immediate environment must first start with a lists of resources in his hand and those readily available to him. They must start from their adjacent possible and continue to open the never ending door of self improvement one room at a time.