Science is to Observe
From a very young age I was fascinated by Science; not tech, not robotics, not electronics or any of their successors; but simply the study of the world around me. I loved to observe indefinitely the things happening around me and reason. Although, I never really could deduce as much as someone like Sherlock could, I loved constructing my own chain of thoughts, scientific explanations; and then maybe some other day these would strike my mind as incorrect and I would modify them.
Many a time, this caused me to develop wrong theories regarding various phenomenon, as I realize now. But, there are times, when I was right ! When I was able to deduce some principles, however trivial, from just observing. These were the moments that caused me to love science. And thus pursuing mastery over this subject became a dream. I looked up not to the likes of Torvald or Jung, but to Galilio, Newton, Pluto and more. I believed philosophy, science and Math's are the three most fundamental subjects necessary to observe well.
But alas; life had other plans. Now studying engineering, I realize that my current situation is far away from what I ever wanted. Engineering (or atleast as much of it I have experienced) revolves around merely going through chunks of material without doing any sort of practical analysis. We learn electromagnetism without ever getting hands on a compass, we learn to theorize force fields without ever trying to sprinkle some iron fillings and validating our results. We know so much theory; yet so less. I know the formula for the electric field caused due to a point charge i.e. coloumbs law. But I have neither tried now I believe will try to verify its correctness. It is as if, it is a axiom, it is not, for this is Physics and not Maths; here we deal with the practical, real world.
I learned electronics, how Op-Amps work, how diodes work; without ever touching an Op-Amp IC in my entire life. I have never broken a diode apart under a microscope to see how the doping structure looks (though it is fairly good enough to understand that with not high magnification both p and n type look the same).
I experience that the more higher I start to learn, this fundamental need to observe is stripped away from me. I wish those old days back, wherein my mind is free to wander to ponder questions on why things happen around the way they are. Why are metals conductive ? Why is my skin this color, what biological advantage could natural selection possibly get with this ? How does a TV work ? And more...rather than having my mind prisoned with the irksome ones of internships, jobs, higher studies and others.
These days my life revolves around AI, WebDev and system design so much that I am unable to enjoy science as it is. It feels we have gone so far ahead; that science is no longer in pursuit of curiosity. But rather, its shoving down a large amount of academic content and doing something that works. I loath this way of learning.
Mine might be an utopian thought; but as a person who genuinely loved to observe and formulate rather than a mere handing me down knowledge, I prefer hands on learning with everything. I am the type of person who believes that, with only the axioms of set theory, you must be able to formula the Mean Value Theorem in Calculus; the chain of reasoning must be correct and strong. What is the use of knowing advanced multivariable calculus if you don't even know why exactly is appeared in the first place ? We don't know the countless other approaches all other people tried and failed before the idea of differentiation/integration came to persist.
It is perhaps due to this love to observe and reason myself and fail and try until I get it right at every step, I hate the guts of AI. AI in my opinion is nothing but a compressed version of the entire world's information. It gives me everything I want so instantaneously with one prompt that I don't see the need to learn to think for myself; this ability is important for me. I am primarily a problem solver and not a coder, I like CS because it enables me to build this ideal world where I can create and understand anything; it is nothing but a complicated calculator. (Taking this thought forward, all branches of engineering in my opinion, are just tools to solve some problems). But sometimes, a problem needs more than one discipline what then ? You call another guy/gal ? How ridiculous is it, if you are constrained to the knowledge of just one field ? How can you claim it to be science ?
Anyways, these are just my thoughts, I'd love to here what you guys think about this and what you're fundamentally curious about !!
Thank you ~😊😃
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