[logicallee]

I'm not actually speculating about some invisible hand directing the Wright brothers, though. They were bicycle mechanics who had relied on patented work. As it began to dry up, they explored new things they could patent.

They literally explored flight purely because it was patentable. Period. If it hadn't been, they would not have played in that field.

see this thread - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7613119

Regarding the rest of your response, okay, I will grant you that asking for cross-cultural comparisons across millennia is problematic. So you simply must think through very rigorously even the thought experiments you suggested. Thanks for the discussion.