"predictability" is only a function of your memory capacity and/or knowledge.
To a scientist/saint who has done a lifetime of study/penance on the past, present and future, every invention is predictable. To a goldfish with 5-second memory, every sunrise, why every breath, is a discovery.
Look at it another way. A scientist 'discovers' the atom. He didn't 'invent' it, right? Now, how did he discover it ? Using a microscope that another scientist 'invented'. So far so good?
Now go down the chain to that scientist. How did he 'invent' the microscope ? Did he make it out of thin air ? No, he was one day playing with 2 optic lenses that another scientist 'invented', and when placed in a line, he 'discovered' that they magnified it 100 times what one lens did. And he told everyone that 2 lenses together is called a microscope that he 'invented'. So far, so good ?
Now, go down the chain to that scientist. How did he 'invent' the optic lens ? Did he create it out of thin air ? No, he was one day playing with glass which another scientist 'invented', and when looking through it, he 'discovered' that they magnified it things 10 times their size. And he told everyone that looking through a glass lens is a 'magnifying glass' that he 'invented'. So far, so good ?
You see the pattern here ?
Every permutation combination of nature exists. In other words, all possible inventions already exist waiting to be discovered by humans, or all possible discoveries are waiting to be invented.
The 2 words are synonyms.
Something 'new' that you 'discovered' was someone else's 'invention'. And once you go beyond the deepest chain that your senses can reach, even the physical laws that govern our universe that were 'discovered' are an 'invention' of God. Where did God discover it from ? We can ask Him.
I wonder if there are languages where this question doesn't make much sense, because, say, both invention and discovery translate to the same word just meaning "creation".
Tomorrow I can come up with a new word called 'oogabookga' which means invention/discovery/creation, and then make enough people accept it so it makes it into the dictionary, and then 20 years later, 2 other folks like us will argue about the semantics between oogabookga and invention and discovery.
That's exactly what happened with invention/discovery 20 (or 200) years ago, and we are those 2 people now.
