At University, I studied Aerospace Engineering.
We learned all about flight dynamics, aircraft design, composites, fluid dynamics, structural repairs…
However, the theory that we were taught is largely based on what’s called “Linear Dynamics” – these problems are fairly simple to solve. Basically, we were using an approximation of true reality in order to solve problems.
In reality, we have non-linear dynamics, or chaos.
Yes, we can still apply some of the same principles in real world design, but when we are dealing with people, emotions, communities, biology and culture, we quickly head deep into a choatic world.
What’s this mean?
We need to be ready for when our neatly designed solutions to a problem simply don’t work. When the body does something we didn’t expect. We need to be watchful to see what we can learn from the conditions around us.
Sometimes, things simply don’t make sense with our framework and we need to be OK with that.
