Philosophy Now Forum

Mathematics, engineering and the sciences are all important to maintain and advance civilization. Without them, we might as well be living in caves.

But to what end?

Is being a worker bee in an aimless beehive any dfferent than being a caveman?

You spend fourty years as a mechanical engineer designing landing gear for Boeing, go live in a retirement home, and die.

Humanity then washes, rinses amd repeats for some undefined reason. . .

"I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce, and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry, and Porcelaine."

—John Adams, Letter to Abigail Adams, May 12, 1780

Aye. Every civilization I know of goes through 3 stages: first one is the one that defines the collection of humans as able to create order and communicate and make things happen (ancient religion, politics and philosophy are examples of how this came about in the past), the second one is refining of those qualities into a productionally sophisticated society (in the ancient days slave-labour and improvements to logistics were huge advancements, logistics here defined as such small advancements as finding faster routes, the first forms of trade or like the making of the roads of Rome, not to mention the making of harbour facilities) and then as each society climbs the latter and hard work and heavy sweat turns to the boredom and ease of having things done for you and having your immediate needs satisfied the society becomes a transcending one, finding its way beyond the world in front of them, into thought, into art and into non-survival-essential consumptional ways, creating meaning where meaning has lost itself (no more struggle for survival).

Surely, our future is a society of film, music, dance, writings... while some crafts and professions are dying because they are no longer essential, they are all reborn in art, we no longer make just to have, but also to get something more than just what we need out of things, meaning, even in such things as the way we make our glasses or cutlery, the way we build our buildings or the markings on our clothes.