Interpretation

In the introduction of his book on Freud, Ricoeur speaks of the man who would take upon the elaboration of a comprehensive theory of language. After negating that such a task can be accomplished by only one man, he enumerates the characteristics of this "modern Leibniz": "an accomplished mathematician, a universal exegete, a critic versed in several arts, and a good psychoanalyst." One should add, I think, a skilled programmer and an imaginative neurologist.

By way of words, a new reality appears in the world. As Aristophanes wrote,  "words give wings to the mind and make a man soar to heaven." Interpreting the symbols on the sky, a smile in the face of the beloved person, the meaning of an artwork; life is this constant interpretation. But an interpretation of a creative nature. By naming, Adam makes nature part and parcel of his own world. He creates it in the moment of discovering it. He invents it. 

To wit, invention carries the sense not only of something made for the first time, but also of something unveiled, uncovered. Literally, something “come upon". From the latin verb venire, to come, and the prefix in, into.  The logical supposition is that in order to be discovered, something invented -- something “new” -- must have been, in a sense, already there. To invent is to come upon something that has always been there (cf. Ecclesiastes 1:9).

However, that could have not come. We could have not find it. There always were urinaries, but only after Duchamp there is a Fountain. There were always photons in the world, but there was no light till living beings developed eyes -- and the biological know-how to use them.

The future remains open.