Exaptation
The principle that inventions and ideas originally developed for one purpose can be repurposed to solve entirely different problems, often leading to breakthrough innovations.
THE IDEA
Exaptation: Repurposing the Old for the New
When faced with a challenge, where does one look for inspiration? Usually you start with concepts you already understand, and materials you already have. This is the essence of exaptation.
The term comes from evolutionary biology—where a trait that evolved for one function is co-opted for another (e.g., feathers for warmth later enabling flight). In innovation and technology, the same pattern appears: a tool or technique created for an unrelated purpose gets adapted to solve a new problem.
A Programmable Musical Instrument
About 1200 years ago in Baghdad, the Banu Musa brothers wrote The Book of Ingenious Devices, which included a design for a self-playing hydraulic organ. The account describes a cylinder that encoded the sequence of notes. The musical automaton illustrates the idea of storing instructions in a physical mechanism.
From Music Boxes to Torpedoes
Steven Johnson traces connections between programmable music, mechanical toys, player pianos, and wireless communication. In 1940, Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr and composer George Antheil worked on a remote-controlled torpedo to combat German submarines. The torpedo’s control signal was vulnerable to jamming, so they needed a way to “frequency hop” in synchrony. Antheil drew on his experience with multiple player pianos in Ballet Mécanique to consider synchronized control. He proposed using two perforated ribbons—just like piano rolls—to encode frequency changes. Johnson connects the frequency-hopping proposal with the later development of wireless technologies, including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS.
Programmability Everywhere
“For almost a thousand years we had that meta-tool in our collective toolbox and we did nothing with it other than play music.” Once the idea of stored program instructions was freed from its musical context, it informed programmable textile looms, early computers, and innumerable devices we use today.
Inventions are almost never solitary, isolated creatures; they depend on other inventions that complete them or endow them with new applications that their original inventors never considered. — Steven Johnson
To look for an exaptation, ask which existing mechanism could perform the function your problem requires.
When to use it
Entrepreneurs using an existing technology from one industry to disrupt another (e.g., applying GPS to agriculture for precision farming).
Engineers drawing on biological systems (biomimicry) to solve engineering problems, such as studying shark skin for low-drag surfaces.
Designers repurposing gaming mechanics to enhance user engagement in non‑game applications (gamification).
Researchers adapting machine‑learning algorithms originally developed for image recognition to accelerate drug discovery.
FROM THEORY TO EVERYDAY LIFE
In practice
From Hydraulic Organ to Frequency-Hopping Torpedo
In the source account, the Banu Musa’s hydraulic organ encoded a musical sequence on a cylinder. Nearly 1000 years later, Lamarr and Antheil drew on programmable music mechanisms for a proposed torpedo-control system. The example concerns reusing a design principle across domains, rather than an unchanged device becoming Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.
From Music to Computing
The account connects programmable musical mechanisms with textile looms and early computing. The reusable idea is that a physical pattern can encode a sequence of operations, even when those operations have a different purpose.
A MOMENT TO REFLECT
Put it to work.
Think of a tool or concept from a completely different field that might solve a problem you're currently facing. How could you adapt it?
What existing knowledge or resources do you have that could be repurposed for a new goal?
Why might it be difficult to recognize when an old invention can be applied in a new context? What mental barriers prevent exaptation?
References
- The Book of Ingenious Devices — Banu Musa (Muhammad, Ahmad, and al-Hasan) (850)
- Wonderland: How Play Made the Modern World — Steven Johnson (2016)
CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
Source texts
- The Great Mental Models Volume 2 Physics, Chemistry and Biology