This was incredibly insightful and eye opening. As a computer scientist now starting to dive into the more philosophical parts of the field, this is exactly the kind of discussions I want to see more of.
Great post. I found this interesting and engaging, although I hasten to point out that philosophy has always been part of engineering. Without going into the history of that, or mentioning de Vinci or Isambard Kingdom Brunel, I want to start with the contemporary usage; bear with me because this goes for a little wander before I reign it in.
I have written many philosophy documents for major projects over a diverse range engineering topics, projects and industries. This have included subsea intervention, field development, renewable scaling and operational strategies of various kinds. I have built philosophies around in-country logistics, availability and reliability etc... You might think this is a little off topic for the type of engineering you are talking about but that is far from the case. The important point is that it is not only necessary to have strategies for whatever it is we want to do; it becomes essential to understand our approach, the industry standards that will apply and the limits of our methodologies. This is applicable to large programmes but also small ones that we intend to pilot and scale. With a solid base it is possible to see the gaps in technology, the technical stretch required and the route to qualification. If I speak about infrastructure I am also thinking about architecture; if I am talking about taxonomy I am also thinking about syntax, linguistics and how we encode information. Risks have to be eliminated or mitigated; contingencies must be specified for the unspecified occurrence. None of that is possible without a philosophy to fall back on. It is not just what do or even how we do it but the thought process behind it.
It does not matter if technology is made better, by which means whatsoever.
What matter is, if we human beeings become better and by this make better use of technology. This is achieved by raising our consciousness. Technologies for this are available and proven to work.
Philosophy could be considered as a mental technology. Which can be misused as well. The one and only common factor for all phenomena is consciousness.
This was incredibly insightful and eye opening. As a computer scientist now starting to dive into the more philosophical parts of the field, this is exactly the kind of discussions I want to see more of.
Very nice! I've been doing lots of my thinking / reading / writing around these themes. Would love to chat more in-depth about topics like this.
Great post. I found this interesting and engaging, although I hasten to point out that philosophy has always been part of engineering. Without going into the history of that, or mentioning de Vinci or Isambard Kingdom Brunel, I want to start with the contemporary usage; bear with me because this goes for a little wander before I reign it in.
I have written many philosophy documents for major projects over a diverse range engineering topics, projects and industries. This have included subsea intervention, field development, renewable scaling and operational strategies of various kinds. I have built philosophies around in-country logistics, availability and reliability etc... You might think this is a little off topic for the type of engineering you are talking about but that is far from the case. The important point is that it is not only necessary to have strategies for whatever it is we want to do; it becomes essential to understand our approach, the industry standards that will apply and the limits of our methodologies. This is applicable to large programmes but also small ones that we intend to pilot and scale. With a solid base it is possible to see the gaps in technology, the technical stretch required and the route to qualification. If I speak about infrastructure I am also thinking about architecture; if I am talking about taxonomy I am also thinking about syntax, linguistics and how we encode information. Risks have to be eliminated or mitigated; contingencies must be specified for the unspecified occurrence. None of that is possible without a philosophy to fall back on. It is not just what do or even how we do it but the thought process behind it.
It does not matter if technology is made better, by which means whatsoever.
What matter is, if we human beeings become better and by this make better use of technology. This is achieved by raising our consciousness. Technologies for this are available and proven to work.
Philosophy could be considered as a mental technology. Which can be misused as well. The one and only common factor for all phenomena is consciousness.