Knowledge is irreversible—i.e., in economic parlance, it doesn’t depreciate due to its substrate-independence, thus it compounds.
“The distinguishing feature of “technological idea” is that, once learned, it generally does not have to be learned again. It can be noted and remembered. Remembered, it no longer has to be produced; it remains with the actor as an unlimited factor of production that never wears out or needs to be economized by human action. It becomes a general condition of human welfare in the same way as air.”
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Related:
- 3-1c2e4.1 ‘Scarcity’ - Knowledge is rare but never a scarce resource
- 5-3c Knowledge is irreversible, and can only go from private to public
- Knowledge is created “out of nothing”
- 2-2a ‘Emergence’ - Knowledge can be created out of nothing and is unpredictable
- 9-1b You can’t really transfer your knowledge to others, because each knowledge has to be created individually
- 9-1b0 Knowledge (both explicit and inexplicit) is created individually. You don’t say “I took it from him.” You can’t blame “he took it from me.”
- Constructor theory