Yes, an observation can spark a process of discovery. I don’t doubt it at all. But what’s fascinating about your comment is the role that explanations play in guiding the discovery process over time. Here’s a fantastic lecture, from Dr. Jürgen Renn that recounts the history of that process for relativity.
It shows how explanations, not observations, acted as Einstein’s north star. There was no empirically pressing problem to guide him (all those weird anomalies like gravitational lensing came later). To your point, it was about reconciling existing explanations of electrodynamics and motion, explanations that were known to be good and thus constraining.
And yes, in his own recollections, Einstein knew the central role of explanations: “I have learned something else from the theory of gravitation: No ever so inclusive collection of empirical facts can ever lead to the setting up of such complicated equations. A theory can be tested by experience, but there is no way from experience to the setting up of a theory.“
That’s right, if we had a theory for how to bridge the gap of conjectural knowledge, building it would follow quickly thereafter.
David Deutsch summarized this as a philosophical impediment. “So in one respect I can agree with the AGI-is-imminent camp: it is plausible that just a single idea stands between us and the breakthrough. But it will have to be one of the best ideas ever.”
And here’s the rebuttal from Ben Goertzel.
http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-real-reasons-we-dont-have-agi-yet
Really - you can tell your self a story and see where it leads. gedanken?
As I understand it - Einstein told himself how something worked until it diden’t. Then he asked - what sort of thing would fit here. Where this conflicts with reality drives the “that’s odd” insight.
At least for me - I myself have been doing this since 1980 or so. I can’t say what anyone else does in their heads but I can relate how I do it on the story of how the brain works. I go on long walks and explain how something works. I hit points where I know that something must fill this function. Mostly I just research and find that it has been looked at it and then I have a good book or paper to read. Over time the story gets better with the retelling. My stories are now coming into focus to many of the inmates here - and the story telling continues - with more people telling this story. At some point we forget we never knew something.
Others, Say Jeff Hawkings, tells a very good story that many people like and we gather here stemming from listening to those stories. We swap stories about these same topics.
So - what role do stories of the village elders play in basic human makeup? Are technical documents an elaboration of this instinctively human activity?
I do think there is a range of human stories.
Do today’s movies act to fill this spot - with weird expectations and cheesy views of just about anything that matters?
Music?
Violent first person shooters that are close to photographically perfect - with gore?
Something seems off with that one.