Zeitgeist

German: “spirit of the age.” The cultural and intellectual climate that shapes what’s thinkable at a given moment.

Darwin sat on the theory of natural selection for two decades, collecting evidence, building courage. Then Alfred Russell Wallace sent him a letter describing the same idea. Darwin had waited; the zeitgeist hadn’t. The preconditions existed — Malthus on population, geological evidence of deep time, the accumulating weight of species variation. Someone was going to see it.

German philosophers used the concept to explain why certain discoveries cluster in time. Multiple independent invention suggests that individual genius matters less than conditions that make the idea ripe. Bell and Gray filed telephone patents within hours. Newton and Leibniz developed calculus independently. The zeitgeist sets the menu; individuals order from it.

The concept cuts both ways. Some ideas are impossible before their time — the internet in 1850, the steam engine in 1200. Others become impossible after — the window that enabled them closes. The zeitgeist is not forever.

Related: [[adjacent-possible]], [[multiple-discovery]], [[scenius]]