New Phaistos

Predictions, predictions vol 2 Last time we discussed about the theory of determinism in the sense of believing that our universe is strictly governed by cause and effect and thus our future is pre-decided. In this post, I'd like to explore a more mundane and earthly application of determinism. An application that has to do with modern engineering and how we design systems that are safe and more importantly understandable to human users. Determinism as a property of a system can be thought of as reliability or predictability. A working concept of this type of determinism is the black box approach. The black box approach essentially implies that it is not necessary to know how a system (let's say, a website) operates: the only requirement to the system is that given the same input (press the same button on the keyboard) one always gets the same output (my post gets published in my blog). The black box approach is thus very helpful; it lets salespeople sell clear features and use...

Predictions, predictions One of the most classic applications of science is to be able to tell the future. Tribe elders and wise men of the past were often faced with prediction tasks. The pressing questions of the day were about the year's farming season (when to reap, how bountiful the harvest will be and so on) and what star should one follow to find their way. After some mix of superstitions and observations we naturally evolved actual experiment backed science. This type of science kick-started the whole modern era. Soon the 4 forces of physics (weak and strong nuclear, gravity and electromagnetism) were laid bare to us. For most of daily's life problems now science had an answer: assuming one knew the underlying rules and initial conditions it is possible not only to calculate the evolution of a system but also its past! And of course, most of the times the rules themselves were way too complicated to calculate, but with some simplifications one could get a good approxima...

Can reasoning and faith co-exist? Science and reason are an intoxicating power-tripping cocktail. Through these tools, the human-thinker feels like they can decipher and predict the world. Like anything can plausibly be within your fingertips. This must be how the enlightenment thinkers have felt and it definitely is how I felt during my late years of high school. Precisely this aura of man centered superiority through reason is what is often seen as the opposite of religion. Pop culture tells us that science is progress, freedom and prosperity while religion is associated with backwardness, prohibition and hardships. A free thinker always dares to question while the believer acts like a follower, content of being told what is truth. I find this comparison mistaken and unhelpful as a philosophical simplification. Of course I have to admit that I am a bit biased here because of my dual identity as a christian and an engineer. But it is exactly this perspective that allows me to see that...

Aerospace engineering culture Growing up I had the impression that aerospace engineering was synonymous to the cutting edge. All the news about the International Space Station, stealth aircraft and the associated space exploration movies gave me the impression that this industry is all about innovation. It turns out I was wrong. In practice, the aerospace industry (as with most human centered industries like healthcare, civil engineering etc.) has a characteristic that is slowing down innovation: it's safety culture. This safety culture permeates throughout all aerospace from research to engineering and services. Arguably the impact of the safety culture is mostly felt at development, where aerospace engineers simply cannot just go ahead and develop a solution to a problem as they see fit. It is very important to have explainable and traceable design, so always very specific processes have to be followed and documented. This documentation always comes handy at the qualification and...