# Talking about a technology without an inventive description is underdetermined For example, if I tell you “a wheel on an axis spins and rolls and bears load” it is up to your imagination to figure out what that could be used for. Instead if you said that “a wheel on an axis could be used for efficiently moving items or cutting things into shapes” it’s a much firmer view. A good inventive description removes a lot of ambiguity. [[Effect A can be used for purpose B entails describing the effect in an inventive manner]]. It’s a double sided coin - inventive descriptions can lead to the [[Einstellung Effect]] and lock people into using a thing in a certain way. This assertion has another parallel to biology in that talking about a species is undetermined. If I said “dog” I could be referring to something that’s the size of a rat or practically the size of a horse. I could be talking about something that violently wants to kill you or just wants to love the crap out of you. ### Related * [[The affordance of a heuretic dictates how it can connect with another node on the tech tree]] * [[Understanding a thing has to do with intuiting the affordances of a thing]] <!-- #evergreen --> [Web URL for this note](http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/Talking+about+a+technology+without+an+inventive+description+is+underdetermined) [Comment on this note](http://via.hypothes.is/http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/Talking+about+a+technology+without+an+inventive+description+is+underdetermined)