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@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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@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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@july
I was exposed to it a bit! But I think I've always naturally gravitated towards more applied science and applied math in general, and physics was a pull for me. I ended up getting more into astrophysics, and through that getting data off satellites analyzing spectroscopy for a supernova -- and honestly ended up actually learning more about computers, computer science / programming through trying to make it all work - ended up being all programming in the end
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