Why is My Dolphin Not Working?
Wait?!? isn’t this that old Meme from the internet that is somehow linked to Elon Musk? Well Yes, you are absolutely right, and also probably wondering what this is all about or how relevant it’ll be to you or the modern-day society. And more often than not, the best way to figure it out is to keep on reading, as you hope this would turn out to be a good read.
So let’s start at the very beginning. “The Big Bang” or “Let there be Light” and slowly move on to more philosophical questions like what came first, “The Chicken” or “The Egg”, as we finally take a pause and ask you, “Innovation or Serendipity”. Either way the results are outstanding and ground breaking, whether it is an overwhelming moment of realization, caused by a failed attempt to get an apple from a tree, leading to the discovery of a way to mathematically represent Gravitational force, to the discovery of the theory of relativity or the black hole theory or even that eureka moment when you suddenly realize how to revolutionize the world commercially, by introducing block-chain.
The bottom line is every form of reasoning, originates from the same source, a simple question that begins with a “why” and then design and innovation takes the questions a step further with a “what if” and a “what is” question. And in the same way, Brainstorming, Use case modelling, the SWOT’s and MOST’s of business planning, are all based on what could be seen as a commonly overlooked foundation: the “Why”, the “What is” and the “What if”.
This article is my humble take on an approach popularized by Elon Musk, called, “Reasoning from first Principle”
“Why …?”, means Enquiry
In a more appropriate setting, we are encouraged to innovate, however, most of the members of our modern-day civilization find it hard to follow this part because it is more convenient to stick with what is familiar — the part of least resistance — even though the thought process governing innovation, seems relatively easier. It’s like developing a bad posture. Even though standing up tall and keeping your chin parallel to the ground, while simultaneously maintaining a fairly regular gait pattern is the best thing for our backbone and general well-being and comfort, it is quite easier and much more convenient to slouch. It feels good because you are temporarily relieving the stress on your muscles and bones by displacing the stress to other parts of your muscles and skeletal structure, but on the long run, the bones begin to stiffen and muscles familiarize themselves with this new found position, and we all know slouching gets us nowhere.
It makes sense to slouch, because it’s so convenient, but maintaining a good posture can be likened to the processes of innovation, and slouching is everything else, oof. Just like getting good posture …I mean… at innovating, It is important to pay attention to the details and what better place to start than at the very beginning, the foundation of the process, which involves questioning reality with a simple 3-letter-question “Why?”. Yes, a certain thing works, “but why does it work this way?”, “How is it that it works this way?”, “Why?!?”
The ideal but easily yet often overlooked approach, involves researching with a top to bottom approach, so as to break the problem down into simpler blocks, and working down those blocks into simpler version until you reach rock bottom (I feel like I should’ve just gone with “… reach the foundation”) from the basic problem, which you’re trying to proffer a solution to, your starting point. With the help of “Why” we’ve successfully broken down everything into very simple blocks, ready for Understanding
“What is…?” means Understanding
According to an Anonymous Quora User, Understanding means being able to correctly predict how some system will react to at least some stimuli. A deeper understanding means being able to correctly predict those reactions in more situations.
I am not a physicist, but when we say that we generally understand classical mechanics, we mean that, given some system with certain conditions (e.g., a ball on an inclined plane or a planet orbiting a star), we can accurately predict how that system will behave, within some margin of error/ignoring relativistic effects.
If I were to say I understand how some algorithm works, it means that I can reason through each of the steps of the algorithm, work out each step on paper, and produce the correct answer, even for inputs that I haven’t seen before.
“Understanding is proportional to expression.” — Self
To say I truly understand something, then I must be able to freely and effortlessly express my knowledge of that which I claim to understand. Understand? This is why the “Why?” was important, to help disintegrate the complex into simpler and more easily consumable units.
Side Note: INTPs usually have a vast understanding of their word, but when they try to explain, it sometimes sound like jumbled up words, which might require some level of patience on the part of listeners to understand what they mean.
To help with the problems of grasping the idea of Understanding, i.e. Learning how to Understand, see Pius Awe’s Post. IT TALKS ABOUT LEARNING HOW TO LEARN!!!
“What if…?” means Experimentation?
“Discovery requires Experimentation …” One of My favorite Quotes, originates from Daniel Whitehall (Agents of Shield) of the Marvel Cinematic Universe,
Its not enough to randomly tinker around the problem until we arrive at a convenient solution. Discovery requires Experimentation, experimentation is the window we need to observe any process. It is the basis of the What If
Now, we’ve traveled from the Cloud of knowledge governing our solution being designed, downwards till we reached the ground, the fundamentals. What if is where we work our way back up, understanding the fundamentals and its applications and more often than not, there’s always a fault, to be exploited and successfully making the most out of this. People who have applied this, usually get tagged as visionary, or People ahead of their time, and what they’ve done is seen as groundbreaking. Being a ground-breaker is just knowing that the ground wasn’t laid by anyone that impressive and the ground isn’t really useful anymore so there really isn’t need to keep it intact.
Like Steve Jobs said, and I am paraphrasing here, “To look forward in time and then connect the dots backward”. It doesn’t make sense, nothing makes sense but we there is order to every chaos, a pattern to every random occurrence, and its all hidden in the ever expanding, ever useful, and yet sometimes underestimated number called Pi. Its more than just 3.142. The answer is adding 3.14 to your problem (See what I did there?). So, follow the dots and clues and trust that they connect you to your future
Total Quality Management and Six Sigma stresses the fact that the Consumer determines what the definition of Quality would be, and since it is impossible to define the reliability of a product, without reference to its quality, it is safe to conclude that A reliable system has a number of features(or qualities) that makes it stand out, coupled with the fact that it is required through its lifetime to perform its required function or purpose.
Sadly, not all systems, products or services turn out to be exactly as intended, but most are relatively close, hence the need for constant update of systems. On an even sadder note, most designed services never make it to the deployment stage, or immediately crash upon mass deployment. Gee! I wonder why?.
So, what’s the point of all this?
To stress the need for a plan, a strategist, a logician, or an analyst?
To emphasize the need for a proper plan, because at the end of the day, a good strategy is all you need. Once you define your goal, the solution being provided, your objectives in the form of milestones to be reached, the obstacles being anticipated, or a pseudo plan to take care of unforeseen circumstances.
Robotics!!! The face of Hardware Engineering, involves laying out a plan, which consists of the services to be provided by the robot, and how it is going to maneuver its way around its surrounding, so as to fulfill its goal. This, like others, involves thinking ahead, anticipating possible obstacles and building a closely-related pseudo work around solution, to tackle said anticipated problems.
Industries are all about the manufacturing of goods and/or provision of services. Rendering Services of quality, involves clearly determining the market needs, the necessary resources, possible problems that could be experienced, such as availability of raw materials, labour resources, energy, product to market strategy, goal projection, market value projection, etc. All of these are necessary, in designing a close to perfect system, which has the added advantage of flexibility when fully in operation.
“In our lives, the only true axiom is “I exist.” Beyond that, nothing is for sure. And for most things in life, we can’t even build a real scientific theory because life doesn’t tend to have exact measurements.
Usually, the best we can do is a strong hunch based on what data we have. And in science, a hunch is called a hypothesis. Which works like this:
Given (it seems, based on what I know): A = B
Given (it seems, based on what I know): B = C + D
Therefore (it seems, based on what I know): A = C + DHypotheses are built to be tested. Testing a hypothesis can disprove it or strengthen it, and if it passes enough tests, it can be upgraded to a theory.”
The above was from an article by Tim Urban.
So, after working from first principles, what do we do? Experiment the life out of all we’ve learn’t so far, and make adjustments here and there regularly based on what we observed. And what next? Experiment some more. Let’s go through the whole process to show how:”
So First we realize a problem, and with an understanding of what is contained within the realms of our reality by exploring the Whys and What is, which we have available at our disposal, with this, we decide on a solution, a goal to eradicate the problem. Our Solution, which is tailored to follow a particular approach is now subjected to What ifs. By experimenting, we make observations, get results and with the feedback available, we gain new insight. This new experience, which is now new knowledge, helps us understand the problem more, and in turn clearly defines what the actual problem is. This is us Evolving; It also helps us understand what is possible and what isn’t, which indirectly translates to us Learning subconsciously.
With all this now embedded in, it becomes easier to deploy a solution with the best approach.
So why is Our Dolphin not working?
It’s probably because even though we wanted a Dolphin, we didn’t take the time out to properly define from first principle what a dolphin is and without stating explicitly the features of our beloved Dolphin, we somehow managed to cyber genetically engineer a Deer. Which doesn’t even have the core feature of a Dolphin, the ability to Swim, let alone play its part in the Vichyssoise of Nature serving as an indicator of the state of the biome (Uh! Yea, I know what that means).
TL DR;
Developing an in-depth and well thought out plan, coupled with the ability to follow the plan accordingly is very imperative to running a system/service of any kind that works as intended. But this isn’t usually done right, due to some common misconception. So, the best thing, is to start by addressing the problem from the root cause, by something called reasoning from first principle. Always ask ‘Why’, ‘What something is’, before introducing your ‘What ifs’. More often than not, this crude approach usually works in providing an optimal solution to every problem worth tackling.
Thank you for making it this far. Pleeeaaasssse!!! I’d love to hear what you think about this article. Thank You!!
Fact: Dolphins are very intelligent, the evolution of their intelligence is almost unfathomable, one might be tempted to refer to it as Alien intelligence.
By
An unsure fellow and his trusted Dolphin .
