Design Points
Can the two ever meet?
There seem to be two ways to approach what the word “consciousness” (or, alternatively, “conscious”) could possibly mean. The physicalist is inclined to start from the most fundamental level of reality and work their way upwards, looking at basic elements such as atoms and deriving properties from these atoms upwards Read more…
Design Points
You see it this way… and I see it that way….
Since Einstein released his theory of relativity, we’ve assumed that what is observed must be relative to us, the observer. We’ve placed great importance on recognizing the reference frame of any observed event. For instance, consider a bouncy ball bouncing in an airplane aisle. From the person bouncing the ball from her seat, the Read more…
Design Points
Design Point: What story to tell–a physical or a linguistic one?
Brian Greene, a pioneer of string theory, claims scientists must tell two tales for a given theory: one mathematical and one physical. Philosophical Engineering Design Point: The “tale of two tales,” as Greene puts it, between the mathematical story of “how the universe evolves” and the physical story, “which translates Read more…
Design Points
Design Point: Thinking outside the box
“Newtonian mechanics unified our understanding of stellar and terrestial motions, and Maxwell’s theory unified our understanding of electromagnetic phenomena and light. Einstein’s special theory of relativity unified our concepts of space and time, and his general theory unified our conceptions of spacetime and gravity”(1). Philosophical Engineering Design Point What is Read more…
Design Points
Common sense?
The artist Rene Magritte was very conscious of symbols and objects. He used them in his work to provoke “powerful responses.” Take a look at one of his pieces titled Common Sense. How does your “common sense” want to describe the painting? Click Here Philosophical Engineering Quintessential Knowledge: The drawing Read more…
Design Points
It’s all in the numbers…right?
When we want to explain the world around us, our immediate intuition is to ask about the newest developments in the field of physics, to describe the world in terms of numbers. We create a formula here, which has numbers plugged in there, and we get a simple numeric answer Read more…
Design Points
What it means to have mental states
Some cognitive scientists now believe that, through development of artificial intelligence, we can create and manipulate consciousness. It’s like those fantasy movies about robots one day having a mind like humans. It’s seems somewhat shocking to us that a computer could be smarter than we are when we built and Read more…
Design Points
Design Point: The Imaginative Mind in Science (J. Bronowski)
“Imagination is always an experimental process…whether we are experimenting with logical concepts or with the fancy free material of art… Many people do not find it as pleasurable to read a theorem as to read a poem… But no creative work, in art or in science, truly exists for us Read more…
Design Points
Thinking about free will and determinism (golfer’s joke)
“Moses, Jesus, and a bearded old man are playing golf. Moses drives a long one, which lands on the fairway but rolls directly toward the pond. Moses raises his club, parts the water, and the ball rolls safely to the other side. Jesus also hits a long one toward the Read more…