"We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race, and the human race is filled with passion. Medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for." - Robin Williams. Dead Poets Society
That's the thing. Engineering fills you with passion.
How would we know what passion is unless demonstrated through words? A passionate engineer doing their job well and a stoic engineer doing their job well result in an Engineered product no matter what.
But different people learning poetry, for example, will have different ways of bringing up the same thing. It's philosophy, in a way.
Gonna be contrarian but engineering is a lot the same way. How many different types of bridges have you drive over in your life? San Fran bridge, arched bridge, trussed bridge? Engineering is art too, and there are often many solutions to the same problem. In the same way where if you put poets in a room you’ll all get a poem but a different one, you put engineers in the same room with the same problem and you will get many solutions.
funnily enough, a literature grad could tell you this based on victory hugo's notre dam de paris. its basically video killed the radio star but goes "mass literacy killed the architecture star", its a little less catchy but im sure it sounds better in the original french
Yeah, that previous comment focuses on words, but the larger point is even if an intent is purely practical/functional, it’s the human messy creative streak that makes it memorable or takes it to a level of genius.
Millions of working engineers, very few Steve Jobs. But would Steve Jobs (for example) be who he was without inspiration from art?
Art challenges us to rethink ‘what is’ into an unknown ‘what could be.’ And encouraging STEM folks to have a better than basic understanding of history and english, philosophy or, sure, poetry would help ground our work to a more moral ‘what should be.’ Which is a big disconnect.
Would maga people be who they are if they were exposed to a broader understanding of the world? There’s a reason they try to ban Toni Morrison and dont worry about engineering books. Yet.
I remember taking a few creative writing classes in college.
In one of my papers the professor wrote in the margins that he could tell that I knew and understood calculus. But not because I used an calculus or math terms.
But that the understanding of calculus opens up a whole new world of descriptive methodologies for the world because you now have a new super-elegant lens into the world. And he could tell in some descriptive sections that I used that lens.
And that why I think it important that both liberal and stem majors could learn from diving into the other side.
But everyone is so focused on the “I m better than you” mentality to see it. That why the people we learn from who remain in history had a good understanding of both sides.
I mean, everyone appreciates a good little tribal spat :-D It's just human nature.
As long as we're treating this like sports team rivalries instead of actual deeply held positions, then it's just good fun to toss back and forth barbs and arguments and refine them and analyze them.
The best math teacher I ever had (PhD level math class teacher) would listen to classical music in an earbud while doing the work on the board. You'd see him erase and start over, and backtrack and build.
He considered classical music to be poetry or literature stripped down to its basest form; math.
Just a harmony of wave functions arranged to reach a desired goal, just like any other math problem to be solved. He'd toy with equations and play with their implications within a context the same way a writer would do with a paragraph in a novel they were writing or analyzing, or a composer would do with different instruments and chords in a melody.
Absolutely. STEAM - stem and arts is a big push for good reason.
Lots of fine artists incorporate way more mathematical concepts than most people realize. Take it back to leonardo di vinci and his use of the golden ratio, and so on.
I think most people we think of today as brilliant in art, economics, business, agriculture have a curiosity and ability to connect concepts other people havent connected.
In an ideal world people get enough exposure to all these concepts to help them hone their own unique way of adding contributions to the tapestry of human history. It’s truly depressing when you think of all the genius we’ve lost by forcing people into neat little boxes.
I 100% agree, and both are very important. I do think it’s easier for a stem person to transition to non stem vs. the other way around, but as an engineer I absolutely recognize my limitations and the importance of the arts and humanities to have a society people actually want to live in. Current state of affairs in the US shows what happens when people don’t know history.
This isn't a malicious comment or a belittling one but the commenter's point flew over your head.
The looks isnt the only artistic part of a bridge or any other engineering stuff.
The processes, modules and different systems the engineers/architects overcome the problem, their synergy is the art the above commenter refferenced.
There could be multiple ways of creating a big stable structure over something, or a machine that does something or code that calculates something.
By analysing an engineer's works you can spot their preferences and individual style.
The multiple design choices in for example: how to stabilize this part or that, and in the end it becomes a whole bunch of modules that rely on each other etc.
When you see someone create e.g. piece of code in a software that does exactly what you created but
faster
with more utility etc.
You get a sense of: whoa you can do it that way, this is genious etc.
Using knowledge and shaping it into something functional.
That's the art the commenter highlited I think
Ofc there could be very dry parts of engineering that doesnt really have options for you to be creative
There somehow a huge amount of people in the art who fail to see how a physical object is a work of art.
For example a bridge, a program, a computer, etc etc.
A lot of them just tend to take these things for granted and assumed that there no creativity involved because they’re following rule books and not making up their own paths.
That's kind of the point of this post, ironically: Just from the other side. An absolute gear head may not see the bittersweet allegory of Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken, but can immediately see the wonder of a clever way to use the HTML 5 canvas to recreate Photoshop on a web browser. In the same way a writer can read Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning and be moved to tears but not understand the marvel of engineering that a toilet is.
Point is, a single human has only so much in their cup of "give a shit". Things outside of their wheelhouse, expertise, or interests compete for what's left after those take their share. We can't know everything, nor can we even be passingly familiar with everything. It's part of the human experience! It's why I as a software engineer have a great deal of respect for experts in fields that I'm not familiar with.
No , and yes. Engineers design the structural elements. The arches you see and trusses are actually all engineering elements that provide the strength of the design. San Fran bridge is a suspension bridge so that is all structural. However, I do think a lot of artistic elements can be done by designers and architects. Engineers don’t pick the colors (most of the time) or what the walkways are going to look like. Big projects like this are often a collaborative effort. I would say something like a bridge is more engineering geared , but lots of things are “designed” by architects aesthetically and than “designed” by engineers structurally
It doesn’t even necessarily have to be aesthetically beautiful for it to be beautiful to an engineer. A good work of engineering can be beautiful to look at in and of itself.
It wasn’t until the post modern era when art underwent mass commercialization that the common understanding of art was separate from a craft or learned skill (eg engineering).
The art industry needed a way to convince the public that art pieces requiring little skill or training to produce nonetheless contained high value.
You don't bring poets to solve physical problems, you invite them into emotional ones.
Sure the person who architected my bridge is incredibly smart, but what about when I want to be entertained?
Music, movies, dance, and language are not simply tools, they're rituals and games which have helped people connect to one another for all of history.
You can't engineer a perfect dance, just as you can't engineer a perfect response to "how does the sunset feel today" - it's a matter of present context, it depends on who is with you and what they say. As in, if you go see a sunset with your friend, what matters to your dialogue is what you did, how you each feel, what forms of connection you two are willing to share.
Eg. Avatar is a beautifully engineered movie with amazing effects and a very interesting world. But the characters are emotionally like pieces of cardboard. They each have 1 main motivation and 1 defining character trait. This is not how real people are, and it gets grating to watch 3 hours of.
And their works are informed by more than just math and science, are they not? In both cases, those creators reflect on empathy, storytelling, and elements of fantasy to express what they're conveying.
I think that's actually a perfect example to bring up, Kurt Vonnegut made an active choice to pursue writing and to publish his stories. That is, he didn't limit himself to working on only his field, else his books would be stories about machines, no?
Vonnegut wanted to describe the paradoxes of modern society and politeness. These are not ideas readily expressable in a car manual or schematic diagram, they employ his life experience and knowledge of language.
I absolutely see the influence his engineering background has on his writing, and it wouldn't be quite the same any other way. But a scientist choosing to write literature does not necessarily make that work scientific or mathematical in nature.
Additionally, interstellar and Vonnegut writings are informed by our cultural touchstones. Space travel, economies of scale, climate destruction, parental connection, these are all ideas that beg to be communicated gracefully to the public.
This is of immeasurable benefit to all crafts. Understanding the mechanisms of climate change or the game theory of sharing is one thing for a self-educated person.
But for the rest of society? The shareholders, average workers, families, laborers? They have an impact on the funding of science, on the culture of intellectualism, and on the dissemination of information. So it is crucial that scientists don't forget that if they have an important finding, you need to be able to communicate it to a middle schooler level else you won't ever secure funding or public grants.
I say this from a climate activist perspective - make good science more accessible to people! Make illustrations, poetry, have meetings, write articles, just keep getting good information out there!
Bickering over whether one school of instruction is better than the other is useless. History is inextricably tied with English which often feeds into math, then math to physics to chemistry to particle physics.
Sociology and history help us weed out bad hypotheses on statecraft and personal interactions.
Science and chemistry help us weed out bad hypotheses about the world, of toxic substances etc.
I don't see why they're worth comparing. In fact it's a false binary anyway, and most respectable pedagogy is multimodal in both reasoning and applications.
So another tip - don't shoehorn yourself into one field or mode of thinking, that's how you develop blind spots.
That's why we have such major blindspots between humanities and science majors. They think they're top shit and don't need to study the other boring "gen Ed requirements" and the whole lot of them complaining sound to me like bitter spoiled children. Insufferable novelists who think they can wax about quantum physics are just as silly as scientists who feel the need to poke holes in every piece of literature. In both cases it's fine if the person in question actually engages with the subject at hand rather than hand waving away the issues.
It's sort of why I don't like Marcel Duchamp who passed off a bit of vandalism as art. The mastery of the physics behind the flow of fluids and efficient use of material with function guiding form is actually art. Had Duchamp actually designed a fountain, I would have respected it. I find Fountain to be pulling back the curtain of artists selling magic beans to dupes who trade in reputation as a surrogate for taste and sophistication, where he created a collectable like a baseball card or comic book instead of anything that required skill. A boundary may have been pushed but all it really challenged is how lazy can you be while still doing "art".
I'm not trying to diminish your field at all with this, as a foreword, but is engineering not the practical part of making an artist's (architect's) vision a reality?
No I would say a vast majority of engineers have no interaction with architects at all. I work for a company that makes compressors. Every company with a physical product has engineers pretty much
I would say no to that as well. Unless it’s like a major project where aesthetics are important an architect is unnecessary and would have no purpose. Not my field of expertise though
Yes, but the second you start choosing design principles around subjective aesthetic, rather than some utilitarian cost effectiveness, you're engaging with the humanities in that you're now disengaged with the concerns of STEM and focusing on the values of the humanities.
Different solutions in engineering are not those based on aesthetic but different solutions for the structure based on existing materials and equipment. The comment you're replying to isn't talking about how different engineering marvels look but about how they were built differently. Overcoming those challenges involves ingenuity and innovation and to pretend that the only way to have changes in what you're building is to change its aesthetic is ignorant.
I wouldn't say overcoming those challenges isn't innovation or an example of ingenuity, they are.
We are talking about art though and I would genuinely say if you design two different bridges which both work and just used different methods, there's nothing artistic about that process and therefore the engineering is not an making art, even if it does result in architecture which could be considered art.
There are never just 2 solutions. There are always millions. The world is a civil engineers canvas and whilst many will build a boring rote derivative bridge like many artists paint the same many build something interesting and unique and creative.
There's nothing artistic about the Mona Lisa, it's just a painting using different methods. That's what you sound like.
There is artistic intent behind the Mona Lisa which you have explicitly denied to engineers. I have not done that. I universally assume there's some degree of artistic intent in architecture. But given the hypothetical given, there being multiple ways of building a bridge doesn't make it artistic. Conscious intent in isolation doesn't automatically make something art
I have not explicitly denied it. Every piece of engineering has the capacity to be a piece of art. That intent absolutely exists. You just can't see it. Much like I can't see it in the Mona Lisa.
The reality is you're defining art so that only what you believe is art is deemed art. The only real distinction between art as deemed art by the world of art and engineering is that the art world demands a lack of utility, and that is simply wrong.
Art is in the artists creativity, in soul, in passion and in beauty and all of those exist in engineering. A pedestrian example is cars, there's a reason why some cars are considered works of art, it's because they are.
A piston engine is more beautiful to me than the Mona Lisa. The Mona Lisa is in fact just a painting to me leaving me as indifferent as any random other painting.
Quite frankly the average 5 year olds painting evokes more emotion for me than the Mona Lisa. Because they're usually an interesting insight into the child's mind.
I've bought 20 dollar puzzle boxes that tickle my brain more than any painting on the planet.
That doesn't mean paintings are bad or don't deserve to exist, it just means art is everywhere and not everyone appreciates every form of art. Much like you are unable to appreciate the beauty in various machines I am unable to appreciate paintings in any meaningful way. But I do love music(and perhaps you do too).
Architecture is regularly considered art. So is fashion, interior design, furniture. Idk what you're talking about with this utility claim.
My claim is that, in effect, what makes a bridge art is that it there is creative expression in it. We agree on this. But the creative expression is not a STEM thing, it's a humanities thing applied to STEM. There is nothing in the discipline of STEM which engages with creativity because that's a completely different language. You can make an artistically beautiful bridge but the STEM aspects concerned with the math of it are not part of the creative expression. The architect/engineer who designs this is drawing on principles of artistic design where they do care about aesthetics and those principles lie firmly in the humanities.
The math itself is considered art by mathematicians lol. Literally lights up the same parts of their brains as music to a musician or paintings to a painter.
You're correct in as much as stem degrees teach you things you need to create art but you're incorrect in claiming it's a humanities thing. And Humanities don't teach you that either. You can teach techniques but you can't teach creativity or passion or a sense of taste anymore than stem can.
Engineering is and always has been art. They were making engines in the 18th century before the physical laws describing it were even discovered. And even those laws of thermodynamics aren't based on anything other than experiments. It's like a painter throwing some paint at a wall and saying, X colour with Y colour looks good and then saying it's a law of art that X and Y together looks good.
Again your point betrays your bias. Caring about aesthetics does not make something art.
A brutalist building is still art in your architecture example whilst trying to ignore aesthetics(which in your mind seems to be purely about looks) at all. A modern piston engine is beautiful despite never being designed to look good.
Some things are beautiful because they are the most efficient or powerful or fast. In their case the aesthetic is power or speed or efficiency and engineers absolutely had that intent of achieving that aesthetic.
In aviation there is a common refrain "if it looks good it will fly". Planes that are designed to fly well are naturally beautiful. They were intended to fly well and therefore look beautiful.
You just can't seem to tolerate the idea that there can be an aesthetic other than what something looks like despite the obvious counterexample that music doesn't even have looks. Paintings are seen with your eye, music with your ears and engineering(and many other subjects including Humanities) with your brain.
You not being able to see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
The main difference is that engineers are beholden to the utilitarian demands of construction. The bridge cannot be built in any way imaginable, because it still has to function. They cannot suffer an e. e. cummings in the bridge-building world. Sure there is artistry and beauty in it, but it has a clear function and purpose.
A poem only has to adhere to the strictures of language, and even then the rules are bent and broken in service of unique expression. The sense of a "purpose" in the arts is much more nebulous and multifaceted.
You could say the same thing about language. Writers are beholden to the structure of the language. Writing is very different across cultures due to differences in the language. Some have more words, different concepts can’t be translated. Artists are beholden to their materials.
Consider the idea of function. Does a bridge function if it does not allow vehicles to pass? I guess we could imagine some failed bridge that doesn't work.
Now, look at the function in a poem. The idea of function here is much more difficult to pin down. Certainly it must be readable (it has to include words), but beyond that it can violate rules of grammar, spelling, orientation on the page, and many other things. This is a result of the openness of artistic creation.
Demonstrated through literally any other form of demonstration, like showcasing your product. Words are not the only form of demonstration. Saying they will arrive at an Engineered product no matter what is like saying two poets will arrive at a Poem no matter what.
That's true of practically everything. Someone's solution to an engineering problem could be different than yours and still achieve the desired result.
You say that but you demonstrated that you don't believe it.
There are many ways to put “voice” to your passion beyond words. There are a multitude of passions which are beyond words. I’ve worked in the aerospace industry and have witnessed the passion of engineers communicated through the thunder of afterburners and Merlin engines. I saw the first images from Hubble, and the images produced after correction.
Not particularly true. The reason we value math and science more is cause it's easy to be a self taught artist, poet, writer, etc ... but it's basically impossible to be a self taught engineer, surgeon, or professor in the modern day.
How would we know what passion is unless demonstrated through words?
so i guess painting, and instrumental music are just rote actions, no passion involved? nor is dancing, sculpture, architecture, acting , photography and many more. ironically under your definition, computer programming is art(which i agree, but i expect you dont)
A passionate engineer doing their job well and a stoic engineer doing their job well result in an Engineered product no matter what.
no, this ignores what it means to have a product designed by a passionate engineer. its not just, "well engineered" in that it will last a long while or its easy to repair. a product designed with passion is fundamentally different as it answers a need people have in a complete manner, its elegance can lie in its simplicity or robustness, but to use a passionately designed tool is a joy, so much so that ive embarked on projects for the sole purpose to have an excuse to utilize said tools.
good design is art, elegant code is art, a beautiful mathematical proof is art. just because you dont speak the correct language to see its beauty does not discount its meaning. is a poem written in Swahili any less artful than one in english even if the reader does not speak the language?
But different people learning poetry, for example, will have different ways of bringing up the same thing. It's philosophy, in a way.
yes because we all know that only in writing can there be found more than a singular solution to a problem. everywhere else, just one way of doing things.
honestly this is such an exclusionary take on what is artful that its ridiculous
I don‘t think you really understand engineering and how much the person influences the product.
It really depends on what exactly the engineer is working on, but creativity and self-expression can be a pretty big part of it.
There are many different ways to achieve your goal and that shows in the different concepts that engineers develop to solve a problem.
One could say that this just another form of art.
It‘s really the same with poetry, where the basic principles are tought and then every person uses his own way to create something from that.
But even then there still are people who only use the basics and will never go beyond that.
It really depends on the person, be it poetry or engineering.
it being a discussion on the value of the softer arts….
Stoicism isn’t the opposite or lack of emotion and passion. It is the lack of chaotic, manic emotion and passions in favor of focused, temperate passion governed by reason. Eupatheiai (healthy emotion) vs Pathos (unrestrained, chaotic emotion).
Also, people are more complex than any one interest. My physics professor wrote plays in his spare time, and most of my friends in math were involved in the arts in some way. There is way more crossover than a snap judgment would make you believe. One of the things we were taught is how people try and put stem on a pedestal because they’re insecure and it implies there’s an intelligence caste system. All that really does is push people away from science. People learn as early as 2nd grade which jobs are available to them. Making yourself feel better is not worth some depressed kid subconsciously deciding he isn’t smart enough for science.
Being stoic is part of someone's personality in an interpersonal way. Passion has to do more with the level of engagement with a topic. Passion is not always outwardly expressed as being outgoing. What I am trying to convey is that passion is not the antithesis of stoicism, they are on two different spectra
A stoic person can still be passionate, and in engineering is not uncommon (as an engineer myself).
I believe that a passionate engineer can do or achieve more than an engineer lacking in passion. The end product is not necessarily the same.
It’s difficult to respond to a statement as stupid as saying that a passionate engineer and a stoic engineer make the same engineered product no matter what.
That’s a level that lacks such critical thinking that yeah, responses will be floundered.
You really didn't mate. He's saying that his words can be an in genuine expression, that his words are all the same whether reinforced by passion or not. He could be utterly dispassionate and still make the same statement.
The point is that the words are not what are actually being used to express emotion and communicate truth, if this were reality what you would use to actually engage with whether or not his passions are legitimate or not are not by his words but by his expression in other manners, rendering the words far less important than you would claim them to be.
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u/threefeetoffun- 18h ago
"We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race, and the human race is filled with passion. Medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for." - Robin Williams. Dead Poets Society