i think that every innovation would come eventually even without their creator, their creators only appear to be at the right place and at the right time, if it wasn't for him/her, another one would have taken his/her place for sure
those heavy tech are bound to happen no matter who have created them, with bitcoin would have been the same
Exactly the inventor is only the symptom, but its not the cause.
The demand is the cause for an invention, and eventually somebody will manifest itself as being it's inventor.
Would the lightbulb be invented if Edison would not be born? Of course it would, several people already tried to build it with little success. Edison was the first person who got it right. But if not him, then the other guys would have tried hard until they would have succeeded.
I agree with this sentiment, as we know there were several people working on projects similar to Bitcoin around the time Satoshi published his paper. Nick Sazbo was working on Bit Gold prior, and Hal Finney was also very influential. I believe the idea was already in the works by several individuals, it was just a matter of time before someone was able to put it all together and make it work, much like your Edison and the light bulb analogy.
History has shown us that many inventions were being worked on simultaneously from different individuals/groups with slightly different approaches, and the credit comes down to who introduced it first to the public or patented it first. But most invention does not happen in a vacuum, but the ideas of others are often incorporated in a unique way so the result seems to be on its own revolutionary, where in reality it was just a co-mingling of existing technologies already present.
The idea can be philosophically analyzed too. If we suppose that the multiverse theory is correct then it may not have been invented in other universes, although the trend of evolution follows a median line, due to the variance and unlikely events not fitting together, in other universes we might not have a bitcoin at all.
Although I don't believe in the multiverse theory but rather in a cyclical universe theory, I could have been possible for bitcoin to not exist in the same time or same spot, but if the universe follows a median line of evolution, then its a necessity for bitcoin to exist eventually, its only the variance that will dictate when will that happen.
So the inventor actually doesn't even matter, because it is a evolutionary guarantee for bitcoin to come into existence, it's just a question of when, due to variance.
So let me give a few examples
HUGE VARIANCE:Earth gets hit by a meteorite in january 1 2009 just before satoshi launching bitcoin and falls into pieces. Earth gets destroyed, so we need to wait 5 billion years before another Earth gets formed, and another 300 million before new humans get formed, and another 50,000 years before another human society gets formed, and another 2009 years before somebody else tries again with bitcoin. But eventually bitcoin gets invented.
BIG VARIANCE:Humanity gets wiped out by a plague before january 3 2009, thus we need another 200-300 year before we rebuild civilization and start again with our electronic projects. In 200 years we get bitcoin.
MEDIUM VARIANCE:Satoshi dies in a car crash in 2007 so he doesnt even start to work on bitcoin. Somebody else gets interested, but he is not as bright as satoshi, but he manages to invent bitcoin by 2020.
SMALL VARIANCE:Satoshi dies in a car crash in 2009 january 2, he already publicized his idea, but he didnt started the network yet, so another guy picks it up, while it make take him a half year to set it up and familiarize itself with the project. Bitcoin is born in August 2009.
So you see, all of these outcomes would have been probable, but eventually bitcoin would have been born, so its not about the inventor but the invention
