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July
@july
I remember I had the opposite problem. When I started first learning how to program when I was about ~13 yrs old or so, I remember having a difficult time. The difficulty wasn't in knowing what a variable was, that it was memory somewhere on the computer saved at an address somewhere, while I didn't know exactly what that meant, I had enough of an understanding to grok it enough to use it. What I didn't understand was, what was a variable, and was, why was it called a variable, and how do variables work in the world, why did they choose it, who made it and kept going down a rabbit hole. In other words, engineering inherently requires you to almost suspend this rabbit hole about diving into the philosophy and larger societal implications about what these things, and the consequences, and how it challenges norms, and disrupts notions of traditional representations of concepts, or what the philosophical meaning is -- if you don't suspend you dont get to the next step
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@july
A lot of art, and philosophy and things like this comes from questioning the world, deeply and challenging conventions. For example, wanting to express something about how sweatshops are causing terrible harm and you buying H&M or Zara for example -- and wanting to make art about it, in some way might come from a deep need to understand where your clothes actually comes from There is this inquisitive nature, or a larger perspective of the world is not always the most compatible imo with deep engineering, because you need to be more enamored by the deep rabbit whole that the physical universe, or the digital universe is, in some ways. So more often than not, you either don't have the time, or the opportunity to deeply look into these things. Every time a new technology is introduced, we often have to speed run economic systems and political systems because paradigm shifts then we are societally forced to figure out the interplay of economic / political agents all over again, i.e. consequences of the tech
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@july
Also when I was a teenager, I did enjoy math, but never had that pure interest in pure math looking back. On the other hand, I did have interest in physics. for a while I thought I'd go to school for physics. i looked up to Feynman, and the other great 20th century physicists at the turn of the century. I often lamented I wouldn't be able to make meaningful discoveries because they had their golden age. I did for awhile think maybe I'll look into string theory, and try to find the Theory of Everything (ToE), and a way to tie Quantum Mechanics and Classical Mechanics together for good. There were areas that did interest me, I particularly found quantum mechanics exciting and fell into that rabbit hole
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@july
Also when I was 4 or 5 years or so, my piano teacher was a wonderful Ukrainian lady who used to teach at the music conservatory. After I started taking lessons, she told me if I really wanted to -- I could work towards becoming a concert pianist, or a professional pianist because she felt like I had the potential. I had to practice though, and I had absolutely no interest, so that didn't happen. But my appetite to learn to play music, and learn different arts didn't end there Over the years, in a few vocations I feel like I had similar things happen a few times - where teachers of various sorts would tell me I had a ton of potential and if I kept going I could be great. There was often a sense that I wanted to give it a shot, but would end up disappointing them because I would invariably get bored of it, or would not be my path, and they would often get upset at me (consciously or subconsciously)
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@vrypan.eth
Were you ever exposed to pure math at school? When I went to university to study math, I realized that it was as if all I did at school was learning to read and write, and now I was studying literature. I think most educational systems put too much effort into applied math and never even hint about the beautiful things (continuity, infinity, metrics, algebras, functions, spaces, topology).
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Bravo Johnson
@bravojohnson
I know there’s a lot of intuition involved but it’s not rocket science. It’s a process others have mapped out for themselves so you can’t really fail too far by taking this and that
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