Last night I had a dream that I was let go from Aurora. It was a weird and detailed one but I do Remember feeling relieved. Why was I relieved?
I wrote a while ago about ‘Why I should be a scientist.‘
- The aim here is to do a small bit of revisionist history on indicators as to why being a scientist might suit me.
- Firstly, the elephant in the room. I’ve never been good at maths or science by academic standards, and even just trying to understand it, it’s never really clicked at all. There is persistence though that I have to understand something. Now, it’s not an other worldly persistence although at times I have been wrapped up in trying to understand something but I would argue that having this element of curiosity and less dramatically a stubbornness to figure out makes up for some of the shortfall, in part.
- I remember having a discussion with my manager in Workday when I was an intern about getting the CCNA, that I wanted to know the deep roots, the fundamental. He said that this is a natural engineers mindset. I would argue now that it’s more of a scientific mindset. The engineer’s skill lies in almost using what is known to create something new. There’s creativity involved in both aspects (in all aspects of life really).
- There is an exactness to scientific thinking that appeals to me. How to get the best possible answer. In the past science has changed in my mind to something more fluid as a search for what is. No one is denying some of the philosophy behind what scientist are doing, in that it’s not completely a priori that electrons exist and that but it’s a start.
- The pursuit of this truth appeals to that natural religious feeling in me. It’s something worthwhile, a way to look past myself and contribute to human knowledge as this abstract concept. The devotion is to ‘what is the case’ to the best of our abilities. I’d like to read a bit more Kierkegaard to relate this from someone who seems to have thought about it a bit more. Does this align with my thinking of being useful? This is also similar to the romantic notion of ‘asymptotically approaching reality’.
- I would argue that a desire to know has always been within me. When I started watching the Big Bang theory and wanted to become a physicist. The formal nature of physics appealed to me, classifying these complex things into something ‘neat’ specifically, symbolically neat aka ‘cool symbols’. I had no natural aptitude for whatever reason, I liked the idea of it all though. When I read Sagan a bit later on the notion of being right was appealing. Knowing the truth had this sense of loftiness and looking smart, a status thing. Granted, I took the ‘wrong’ message maybe from that and it’s hard to really know what i felt about it at the time (as I said, revisionist history) but there was something that appealed to me about science and truth. Later again, on reading Feynman’s lectures I got the sense that really thinking about the simple concepts in Physics can really reveal a whole lot. Firstly, how novel some of these ideas can be upon thought about them (think, ‘acceleration’ or something you think you know) and also how to formalise such concepts, to stop using language that is ultimately bias towards what we know (admittedly, I’m riffing off of the excellent article I read yesterday about the layers of reality but I think it conveys a fair point).
- The big point in my mind is: Do I like the activity of doing Science? Because that’s really it. The answer is I’m not too sure and it depends what I’m working on. I will say, that if the notion of being a software engineer is ‘loving building products’ I can’t say it appeals to me generally. It’s of course important but my passion isn’t really in building things more in figuring stuff out.
- What threads can I explore to clarify things?
- What does it mean to do Science? Can I get advice on what that would entail?
- What do I want to know more about, what are my areas of interest?
- Does this area of interest also meet the criteria of being useful? How general am I willing to go with this criteria? As in, basically anything I do will be useful in some capacity (hopefully) but what specific kind of usefulness.
- Can I look at doing some ‘Science’ say, a small project?
- I’ve noticed, on reading back through this file, my general thinking hasn’t changed much. The above I would say, is something I would agree with a year ago. There’s bumps and influences from different angles but they seem to appeal to a similar set of values. Think it’s important to acknowledge this similar trend and also how the bumps are only bumps.