My preadolescent self and engineer father often talked during the quiet midnight hours as our family travelled from Gauteng to Cape Town. Such powwows eschewed expected paternal patterns. Instead, we were waxing over Quantum Physics, Thermodynamics, and Artificial Intelligence. The eternal thought-experiment of alternative histories always haunts. For example, what if these talks turned to other relevant topics, such as social matters? O, if one could obviate in retrograde! Truly our wounds foster our fascinations and cuddle our creativity.
As this study began, one wonders how such impromptu symposia engendered this study. Harman’s (2009: 18) commentary on Latour provides part of an answer:
The engineer is not a free-flouting mastermind of stockpile and calculation, as Heidegger imagined. Instead, the engineer must negotiate with the mountain at each stage of the project, testing to see where the rock resists and where it yields, and is often …show more content…
The mountain, for example, is a mountain-pass engineer 's biggest problem. However, every answer to the mountain pass building problem comes with unique snags. Every research answer comes endowed with epistemic overheads.
Research’s second commonality is resolve. After accounting for the mountains of resistance data, the mountain-pass-visionary needs diligence. Scientists are constant reflexive testers; they pass through and revisit data paved with potholes. Theories and methodologies are more like Swiss cheese rather than airtight containers. In other words, ideas are heuristic: good enough but seldom perfect (Harman, 2009: 120).
Often, then, stories of discovery run through resistance, persistence, and finally accident. Our long late-night parleys soirees often stumbled upon interesting ideas. Scientific discovery sometimes comes from a series of accidents, stumble-upons, and surprises. Indeed, how does something excite, if not uncovered by surprise and
As this study began, one wonders how such impromptu symposia engendered this study. Harman’s (2009: 18) commentary on Latour provides part of an answer:
The engineer is not a free-flouting mastermind of stockpile and calculation, as Heidegger imagined. Instead, the engineer must negotiate with the mountain at each stage of the project, testing to see where the rock resists and where it yields, and is often …show more content…
The mountain, for example, is a mountain-pass engineer 's biggest problem. However, every answer to the mountain pass building problem comes with unique snags. Every research answer comes endowed with epistemic overheads.
Research’s second commonality is resolve. After accounting for the mountains of resistance data, the mountain-pass-visionary needs diligence. Scientists are constant reflexive testers; they pass through and revisit data paved with potholes. Theories and methodologies are more like Swiss cheese rather than airtight containers. In other words, ideas are heuristic: good enough but seldom perfect (Harman, 2009: 120).
Often, then, stories of discovery run through resistance, persistence, and finally accident. Our long late-night parleys soirees often stumbled upon interesting ideas. Scientific discovery sometimes comes from a series of accidents, stumble-upons, and surprises. Indeed, how does something excite, if not uncovered by surprise and