arts/humanities vs science vs engineering
I sometimes feel that engineering is too off from the regular human life.
When I come home after browsing through lot of software code at my workplace as a software engineer, it becomes difficult for me to merge back into normal (family) life.
Software code is closer to mathematics, both of which are abstract and distant from normal/real life/world.
If I would have been in arts/humanities/social sciences, I would probably have been closer to human life, and wouldnt have felt it difficult to switch to family mode after reaching home. Even being a manager in an engineering firm, would have reduced the divide, since managing involves tasks like "managing people; managing projects; getting things done; getting issues solved; organizing for efficiency" which often does not involved delving into abstract technical details.
Mechanical engineering (like working in General Motors, designing a car engine), also would be closer to science, both of which are not as distant as math/software from real life, since they are concerned with actual physical things that move like gasoline, pinston, air, car, etc.
Ofcourse where this is too much "logic" involved, it often becomes like "mathematical logic", and thus goes towards mathematics. So if you go further from physics of materials in an engine, and start applying mathematical logic, you go towards more abstraction.
Hmm, but physics also involves lot of mathematics and equations, so it is difficult to consider science (physics/chemistry) as being less abstract than mathematics. Biology though is not part of that group.
There's one more thing: People in engineering tend to go away from arts/humanities, and vice versa. Reminds me of C. P. Snow's idea of Two Cultures
Another thing: Brain, i think does not naturally compute logic, it is more of an emotional and biological machine. Our logical thinking is a burden on the free, natural, mind. Like Stan Ulam, friend of Alan Turing, said "What makes you so sure that mathematical logic corresponds to the way we think?"
Comments
I have to say i am almost speechless at the way you put humanities vs science/engineering. I could not agree more that when one moves toward a career or study of humanities he/she tends to move away from the other. I work as a dental assistant, secretary, and...well basically i'm a person who operates as a three-man crew. I work with a lot of people and i am responsible for dealing with and organizing certain situations. But in doing so i cause myself a lot of stress and i am only 19 years old. In order to counter-balance that stress i find myself working with computers and anything that has to do with mathematics. The brain may not naturally compute logic (but what can you really define logic as? you don't don't have to answer that! ^_^) But for me it's sometimes a way to get away from natural thinking...my thoughts become bogged down and i become frustrated with them so i make my brain work. But to tell you the truth i had no idea how it worked the other way around and your post gave me a good view of that...thanks!
Posted by: Jay | November 10, 2005 12:15 AM
Much thanks for your comments, Jay. You gave me the other side of the coin. I never imagined this happenning.
But I now realize and accept that maybe mind has that hunger for "systems", and "logic", where it wants to sharpen its analytical thinking.
But I still think that this hunger is not naturally present in all people. I mean, there will be very large number of people for whom this hunger will be small. Especially for the female half of the population. ;-)
Posted by: Gaurang | November 10, 2005 3:14 AM
Searching for the difference between science and engineering I ended up reading this passage. I totally agree that programming and abstract thinking puts you away from the real world. I wanted to do programming because studying chemical engineering I couldn't find enough logic and hard problems to think about. And writing the code is ok but up to certain level when everything around you seem strange. Since this is a real world, it comes to that most likely you are becoming strange. That's why I came back to engineering where you have more real-life things to do and still employ some science.
However, I think that different people manage it differently. I have two friends (ex-roommates) who cand stand programming quite good. They do it all day and still communicate great in real-life, although it would probably be better if they were running some other business.
Posted by: bokile | September 21, 2006 3:58 AM
Change your fucking job then you douche bag
Posted by: Joe Bloggs | March 22, 2011 11:27 AM