روسپی اورژانسِ میلِ جنسیست. این شغل باید رسمی شود و پایگاهِ اجتماعی پیدا کند. روسپیان باید آموزش ببینند. این حرفه نیاز به یک دگرگونی دارد.
پورنوگرافی یک هنرِ ارزشمند است که کم اهمیت جلوه داده شده است. این هنر نیاز به کمک دارد و باید در دانشگاهها تدریس شود.
This entry and its proceeding one will be two of the most interesting posts I’ll ever publish in my weblog. The reason is that these posts aim to clarify the crucial criteria, one needs to consider when he wants to decide between becoming a scientist or a philosopher when he is young; say in the age between 18 and 22. Nevertheless, despite my career in science, these criteria have never become clear enough even for me! Here I have asked Amyr Anvary, a friend in philosophy side, to write an article describing why he is more interested in philosophy. In the next post I’ll explain the reasons I preferred science for myself.
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I have always been more drawn to Philosophy than Science. That is because I find philosophical cognition more authentic and genuine. in order to explain my viewpoint and this make this post easier to read I decided to talk about what I think Philosophy is (Part One), discuss Science in contrast with Philosophy (Part Two) and name two reasons why I think scientific cognition is neither complete nor satisfying (Part Three) separately.
1.
Although people usually define Philosophy by its ‘subjects of concern’, I am more comfortable with my own definition (which is of course a work in progress). Philosophy is a unique way of talking about potentially everything using reason and intuition and coming to a result with which one can rest satisfied. I purposefully use the word ‘talking’ –and not thinking or study- because I believe Philosophy is a form of discourse. This does not necessarily mean that a philosopher is talking -directly or indirectly- to someone. What I want to imply is that Philosophy is a language-dependant phenomena and it happens with motives of communication. The uniqueness that I pointed out in my definition of Philosophy is because of doubt. Same as Science and unlike engineering, Doubt is a crucial method in Philosophy and since you don`t have a ‘unified reality’ -in a philosophical sense- to measure yourself with, doubt plays a more important role in Philosophy than Science.
2.
Science and Philosophy have more in common. They are both concerned with understanding of Nature, the difference is that in order to understand Nature Science tries to understand how it works but Philosophy takes a more ‘ontological’ approach. Meaning that while the main objective of Science is to understand Nature, Philosophy tries to use what is so far grasped about Nature and talk about concepts like existence and reality. Especially in recent decades Philosophy has been influenced by Science more than ever. Philosophical ideas also play a big role in evolution of Science; since many of scientific assumptions are backed up by huge philosophical backgrounds. Let us discuss this further.
Any scientific cognition takes place in a well defined consistent and arguably complete axiomatic system. Meaning there are fundamental and mostly philosophical concepts on which our further definitions and theories depend. How are these propositions, which we label as axioms or assumptions, philosophical? To answer this let me point out the difference between two kinds of axiomatic systems. In a mathematical axiomatic system such as Euclidean Geometry or Group theory axioms are interchangeable with other proposition within the system. These axioms have been selected from a bunch of basic propositions because they contain all the information we need in order to define the structure of our system. They can be replaced by other propositions. Galois came up with most of fundamental definitions and statements of Group theory without even formalizing axioms of Groups. But in Newtonian mechanics, for example, existence of space without quantification is assumed. ‘Existence of space without quantification’ is a statement which cannot be replaced by any proposition within the Classical Mechanics. Beside axioms, in a scientific axiomatic system, some other propositions are assumed (consciously or not). Even though this sort of assumptions might look like physical statements but they are backed up by many controversial philosophical ideas, some of these assumptions include determinism, causality and existence of mathematical discipline beneath any physical phenomena. Any scientific revolution happens exactly by challenging these philosophical assumptions. That is why I think any scientific cognition evolves in a world provided by philosophical ideas.
3.1
How is reducing a phenomenon to mathematical formulae providing us with some sort of satisfying cognition? Science has proved to be successfully able to predict and use Natural phenomena. But how is this helping us understanding Nature?
3.2
In 17th century René Descartes used the term res extensa (thinking subject) in opposite of res cogitans (read physical reality); although his intentions were towards discussing individualism somewhere along the way he formalized something much deeper and more profound, by separating the thinking subject and the physical reality, Philosophy and Science became two separate entities and went their separate ways. As a result Science became incapable of knowing itself and even scientifically understanding itself. This is the main reason behind the creation of some schools of Philosophy such as epistemology or phenomenology.
Couple of weeks ago, I had an exciting debate on some points in my previous entry with Mehrdad. He is offering us his insight on the matter science and engineering. Although I am not totally in agreement with him, I’m putting his article here without any changes as a good respond to my post. He is, indeed, a super genius who will be discovered soon! However, he has some unfair judgments here! Ha-ha!
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It’s been a relatively long time since Sina asked my idea about his blog post on theory and application. I decided to write a guest post on this blog to argue about his point but due to time constraints, I was not able to do so until now.
Traditionally, -since I have an argumentative personality- I’ll start counter-arguing from an engineering standpoint and try to make theory look absolutely obsolete as soon as I face these kind of posts! While most people think of me as a theory-hater, I don’t hate theory at all; therefore, I decided to write this blog post from a realistic and unbiased, point of view. After all, I don’t want to say what I don’t really believe in!
I’m not going to discuss theory and practice in general. I think Sina’s post primarily compares engineering and science as academic disciplines, and by science he means theoretical sciences. However, there is a point that makes me feel he named all good things “science” and all bad things “engineering!” I don’t want to argue with Sina’s blog entry word by word since it’s not really the place. Comments are there for a reason. I want to keep this post’s independence.
I have a different idea on theoretical sciences and engineering. I believe the difference between science and engineering is just like the difference between computer science and biology. They are two sciences pursuing two different goals. Engineering relies on pure science just like physics relies on math. To be a great physicist, you don’t have to be the best mathematician in the world, but you have to be good at it nonetheless. You don’t have to prove pure mathematical theorems, but you should know their existence to use them in the best way possible. Of course, physics and math are related, but they have different set of goals to accomplish. Does it make one of them better than the other? It’s like comparing apples to oranges. Both of them, directly or indirectly, will try make the world a better place to live in, but in dramatically different ways.
Engineering is just like physics. To be a great engineer in a specific field, you have to know what’s going on in the underlying science. What are the theoretical solutions to a specific problem you’re working on. You should have enough expertise in theory to use it in real world applications, but you don’t have to be the best theoretician. As an engineer, you have to be constantly in charge of what’s happening in the theory world and see how you can apply it to the specific problem. In theory, you can abstract away a large sum of constrains which do exist in the real world to make your model simpler to work on. In practice, you have all the constraints in your way. Engineering is the science of integrating a variety of theoretical solutions to different problems to provide a complete solution to a specific real world problem. I think it’s a science, just of a different kind. If you want to be a good engineer, you have to know how to make good decisions, how to make trade-offs. In theory, you can be an idealist. This is the biggest difference between theory and practice in my opinion. In theory, you imagine the world you’re working on. You set the limitations. You define a problem and solve it. In practice, you are not the problem setter. You don’t control the constraints. They do exist and you should find a way to circumvent them. To do so, you require a broader set of skills. You should be able to be good at managing people and resources. You have to be good at communicating to understand problems. You should know a diverse set of solutions, advantages and disadvantages of them and be able to choose between them to get the possible result. It’s a blend of management, psychology and the underlying science. You use all of them as a tool to accomplish the result you need.
Basically, I feel it’s impossible to draw a strict line between different fields of science in general. This seems to be true about science and engineering. In fact, most scientific studies in the history are motivated by real world needs. Number theory is the only field I know that’s improved without having any practical application for years. There might be more fields that I don’t know of, but I’m pretty sure there are much more the other way around!
That was my general point of view about engineering as a science. I think they are separable to some extent, but not completely. And if you separate them, you get two different but related objectives. This particularly cannot make any of them worse or better than the other one. Choosing one is solely a matter of personal preference.
I don’t believe pure science is more magical either. Ask anyone, going to the moon is more magical or just thinking for yourself that you have a teleportation device that can take you to the moon in an instant!
While theoretical sciences will infuse engineers with great ideas to solve a new set of problems every day, building real stuff can directly help sciences to experiment. Yes, engineers are always trying to make things cheaper. But making them cheaper might be the only way they can happen. Most large scientific projects need money to happen! Look at the LHC! Without engineers to make it as cheap as it already is, it would’ve never happened. This is a simple example. The success of the Internet is directly related to the fact that computers and communication channels are really cheap. Even if you were the world’s richest man and you could buy anything you wanted, you couldn’t use a fax machine if you were the only one who could buy it! So making things inexpensive is a big deal! It makes things happen that otherwise would never existed.
You might ask, so if you don’t have any problems with theory, why you look like hating it so much? I don’t hate theory in general. Even though, I like to see real impact of what I do as soon as possible, sometimes I like theory. I like abstract concepts. I like imagination. What I hate is though, the fact that theory, just like applied methods, gets old. If an applied technique gets old, it’ll be clear that there’s a better way to do so, and since a better way probably costs less, everybody would like to use it. Or at least they’ll know it’s old. This is not true with theory. People usually stick with classical theories for so long. The cost of doing so is usually underrepresented. Specially in academic communities, relying on classical theories is very common. We should know that theories can get old. Even if the fundamental thing doesn’t get changed, the way you look at it can change. It can be improved. We shouldn’t study what’s been thought for 30 years. People do it and say it’s a fundamental thing that doesn’t change. It’s like math! I think even the most abstract science, mathematics, has undergone major changes in the history. The notations, the way we express things, the way we write functions. They change constantly. They are inspired by the change in the real world, the advent of computers and much more; and that’s for the most abstract of all sciences! More applied sciences, such as computer science should change more frequently. This is why I look like I hate theory. In fact, I don’t hate theory. It’s a good thing. What I hate is studying old theories. Sure, it’ll be great for a history major! But for a computer scientist, it’s a deathly thing. You want to study the theory of operating systems!? Why should you look at things that existed 50 years ago. You should look at what we use today. The theory we use today. You want to study databases from a theoretical perspective?! You gotta look at what exists nowadays. It’s not necessary the same thing that existed 30 years ago. Though they might be similarities, many things gets old and useless and new things come along. They do affect the theory as much as practice.
As Sina said, the brilliance of theory is being boundless. When you study theory, you should not bind yourself to specific borders. If you do, as done in our universities, you’ll remove the whole good point and you’ll end of with absolute bullshit which I do hate!
I think I’m too lazy that I didn’t have any post for a long time! To prove this laziness, I am deciding to build this entry upon your own ideas. Here is the matter we are going to discuss:
People who know me for a long time remember that I have been in the engineering side before! I started my scientific activities with electrical and electronic engineering. Then I moved to the mechanical engineering, busy with micro-aerial flapping vehicles. I was in the middle of the way when analyzing the mechanical parts guided me to mathematics and computer science. As far as I was going into the theory side, I found it more exciting and gradually decided to become a theorist! But why? Why did I prefer philosophy and theoretical sciences to the application?
First of all let me describe that there is a huge difference between experimental sciences and application/ engineering! Engineering is “The creative application of scientific principles to design or develop structures, machines, apparatus, or manufacturing processes, or works utilizing them singly or in combination; or to construct or operate the same with full cognizance of their design; or to forecast their behavior under specific operating conditions; all as respects an intended function, economics of operation and safety to life and property”; as the American Engineers’ Council for Professional Development defines. However, experimental sciences are the form of sciences that need measurement and manipulation devices and machinery, but it is still science. We have to think of this apart from engineering.
Let’s go back to our own topic. In this post I have mentioned five reasons to answer why I prefer science! They are namely, curiosity about the fabric of things, complexity, adventure of seeking new phenomena, simplicity (from the production point of view) and the friendlier atmosphere.
The simplest insight ever, tells that philosophy asks “What is something (say existence, knowledge, mind, etc)?” Science asks (fundamentally) “How and why things happen/come to reality?” and engineering asks “How to build and make it inexpensive?” Thus at the beginning of the way it divides engineers from the people who are curious about the fabric of things. Scientists and philosophers cannot leave such questions away and just utilize them to build things.
Another difference is that basically, theoretical sciences are more rigorous than the applications. This order of precision causes it to be more complicated and more sophisticated that makes it a suitable choice for a complicated mind! At this stage we have to recognize that this complexity is not in contradiction with simplicity and elegance of a scientific theory, this is just a comparison with a problem in engineering!
Sciences deal with quantizing mystical subjective and objective phenomena, while engineering at most is able to use those phenomena to build things! There is no magic in engineering! This can be a good reason for a scientist who is doing research for its excitement to choose a theoretical science!
Science in some sense is easier to handle and in this particular occasion this is a good thing! In engineering it is possible (mostly in the fields that deal with physical devices) that you have designed everything perfectly but a small out of order piece that is beyond your ability to observe or predict, makes everything not functioning at all! A bunch of boring trial and error job is needed to fix that part! However, in science if you have done your calculation and measurement well, you’ll get a convincing result.
Moreover, in the scientific community (apart from the developing countries and some few other cases) you are very friendly to your competitors and you can share your ideas and benefit their advices. Nevertheless, in the engineering side you always have to be conservative and careful that you do thing before the others to be able to get more fund!
Umm … There are many! But I have to go now! Would you help me count more differences that make theory more exciting than application?
These days, any computer scientist who is working on quantum computing is asked some common questions. I put them into two categories:
First, the questions like “What will you do if quantum computing doesn’t pan out in the next 20 years?” or “What if quantum computing is fundamentally impossible?”
Second, ones which ask you about your opinion about the D-Wave Systems.
I came here to answer these questions once for ever. However, I’ve found Scott Aaronson FAQs the best possible answers to the former. The best thing, I think, to do for the latter is to read this in Technology Review, and then search “D-wave” in Scott’s blog, then compare with what you read in Geordie’s! Or else, you can wait until the end of 2008 and see if they’ll present a 1024 qubit quantum computer or not!
I believe that it is best to judge yourself. Nevertheless, I am also skeptic, as many of the famous computer scientists are. However, I wouldn’t say “by the end of 2008″ if I wanted to bluff about such matter!
