Philosophy of Engineering

The Philosophy of Engineering

Since there is such a dearth on the subject, this ultimate layman is going to jump right into the middle of the void and set my 'Kilroy was here'-marker down.

I see the philosophy of engineering as the consideration on the use of resources, designs, materials and their application affects. It's not about the fabrication of the widget, it's the use of the widget beyond it original intent. Should the widget be considered for fabrication because it is metaphysically feasible? In the design and fabrication, the less esoteric discussion of what efficiencies of elegance are utilized at arriving at the 'final' form. Unlike many philosophical questions that have a 'many path' resolutions, for the fabrication of a concept, even, is there not a degree of logical elegance in the formation of a concept?

I would assert that the philosophy of engineering would be an extension of the discipline of thought. How we use time to prioritize the movement of our attention for our kinetic movements (of action). Even, our recreational and passive awareness of stimuli in our sensory field could be subject to a discipline. Though I would advocate that 'vegging' in sleep or meditation would be the preferred re-creational use of 'passive' awareness. Vegging, I'd define as the non-intentional awareness of things for which we have no utilitarian plans. Passive awareness would be the act of non-intentional awareness. This connects to the discipline of thought and the philosophy of engineering as the subconscious operations of the disciplines of thought. The inspirations of 'satori', aka insight or inspiration, come from this reservoir of disengaged intentional attention. The inspirations become the mental jig-saw puzzle pieces from which we use the disciplines of thought to construct elegant logic threads for our kinetic movements of whatever fabrication.

By submitting to this process of vegging to satori to inspiration to associative coupling for tactical and strategic logic plans for our movements we create an individual predisposition for the type of engineering we'd be employing. That engineering would be organically connected and not some abstract, alien imposition on the nature processes.

Why would I make this assertive leap? Because many of the 'tools' we employ are designed to deconstruct not only the environmental natural order, but our direct, physical, exertional experience in the natural order; the tools become the substitute and surrogate for our own tangible, tactile interaction in the natural order. As we begin to diligently be conscious of the way we prioritize and organize our physical movements in our triaging to get things done, we our thinking will organically conform to assist those intentions. That thinking will seek out the facilitating forms in its field of awareness to be more organically efficient in supplying us with the more congruent 'stimuli' of choices. The result of these mental habits of attentive organization will direct your predispositions and preferences to those forms that best support the rigor of your efforts. As we seek the more elegant physical efficiencies for our direct intentional attention and their physical, kinetic intents, our aesthetic preferences will conform to our operational mental organization. What we fabricate will be from the metaphysical fetus of that mental habit of focus.

Philosophy of engineering is the offspring of the architecture of thought. That architecture of thought is the process of attentiveness to elegant efficiencies in tactile, tactical, and strategic movements of our sensory and physical apparatus-the ultimate tool!