Core and Frame of Structure: Towards an Engineering-Centric Perspective
In an era where the boundaries of traditional disciplines blur and the complexity of global challenges demands multifaceted solutions, the discussion of structural principles and their application beyond mere physical constructs has never been more pertinent. Engineers and architects, traditionally rooted in tangible constructs, are now at the forefront of this evolution, redefining and expanding the very essence of their roles.
When thinking from the standpoint of system engineers or architects, structure becomes an important keyword. Although the term “structure” holds various meanings, it fundamentally refers to things that maintain a shape.
By closely examining this property of structure, we can extend the properties of structure to concepts as well as material objects. I have always believed that the skills and approaches of engineers are useful not only for technology but also for interdisciplinary research and social issues. By organizing the limits of science from the properties of structure, this idea has become clearer.
In this article, I will discuss the core and frame of structure, the limits of science, and the possibilities of engineering.
Core and Frame of Structure: Centrality and Boundary
When thinking about structure, there are cases where the core, like bones or the cytoskeleton, forms the structure, and cases where the frame, like skin or the cell membrane, forms the structure.
All known living organisms fundamentally possess both core and frame.
While there are differences in softness, organisms with sturdy bones like vertebrates generally have a hard core of bone and a soft frame of skin. Crustaceans have a core of soft muscles and a hard shell frame. Mollusks and single-celled organisms have both a soft core and frame, not liquid-like but flexible.
In non-living things, we see things without structure like liquids or gases, things with a solid, integrated structure like a mass of stone or metal, things with a frame but no core like a water balloon, and things centered on a core that attracts with magnetic or gravitational force like a magnet or star.
Application to Concepts
What’s interesting about the idea of core and frame is that it can be applied not only to physical substances but also to concepts in our minds.
For example, concepts with clear definitions differentiate whether an object fits within that concept. For example, a triangle can be defined as a shape with three straight lines and three angles, and we know it’s not a triangle if it has four angles. This can be said to have a frame called definition.
On the other hand, there are many concepts that are difficult to clearly define. Not only abstract things like love or life, but even a food item like a cake is hard to define clearly. Generally, we imagine a fluffy and sweet food made with wheat flour like a sponge cake, but there are also cakes like cheesecakes that do not primarily use flour.
Limits of Classical Science
Thinking this way makes it easier to understand the limits of classical science. The methods of classical natural science based on clear definitions, theories, reproducibility, and evidence obviously can only shed light on a narrow area of this world.
Understanding the narrowness of science clearly becomes a problem when trying to fit various arguments into a dichotomy of scientific or unscientific. It’s not just a matter of things that science does not know or has not been elucidated. To begin with, the frame of science, including definition, theory, reproducibility, and evidence, differs in size and nature from the frame of the real world.
The Realm of Engineering
Understanding science as rationality and the limits of science as the limits of rationality is a major mistake. Yet, we cannot regard sensations or intuitions completely unrelated to scientific things as rationality. The rationality that deals with the part beyond the limits of classical science is the realm of engineering.
Compared to science, which requires strict definitions and evidence, what engineering requires is practicality. Being useful is the essential purpose of engineering.
Image of Engineers
If there is lighting in the room, you can live comfortably even at night.
There are scientific principles behind the phenomenon where electricity flows and lighting emits light, and lighting fixtures function based on the scientific technology based on that knowledge. That’s the realm of science and scientific technology.
What kind of switch is easy for many people to press? How can we ensure that lighting fixtures hanging from the ceiling do not fall? When the lamp inside the lighting fixture burns out, how can ordinary people replace it without calling an electrical professional, ensuring that the terminals do not short or loosen? How to attach a switch to the wall of a house quickly without damaging the wall? How to prevent a fire even if excessive voltage or current flows, or if the electrical wiring in the walls or ceiling degrades after 10 or 20 years? How to manufacture wiring, bulbs, lighting fixtures, and switches at a reasonable cost in factories? How to illuminate the room with sufficient brightness while keeping the daily electricity cost low?
The practicality that engineers, practitioners of engineering, think about is this kind of thing.
Even if we say engineers in one word, there are various people. The engineers I expect are not just people who perform work to create visible functions. As mentioned in the example of lighting earlier, they are people who, while packing considerations from various non-functional perspectives, aim to provide practical, useful, safe, and affluent living without giving up or collapsing.
Multifaceted, Full-Stack, Architecture
Traditional engineering has been the intellectual work performed for the field of design and development of industrial products in industrial society. With the emergence of computers, software, and the Internet, engineering has expanded its fields not only to individual products but also to information and communication systems, known as system engineering.
On this extension line, the world of engineering that I imagine is expanding. In other words, it is the idea that intellectual work called engineering, which rationally approaches from the perspective of usefulness to its subject, is necessary when applying scientific knowledge and technology to various fields, whether in society, culture, individuals, or organizations.
Based on my experience as an engineer in the field of information and communication, the important three points of view when approaching such new fields using engineering rationality are multifaceted, full-stack, and architecture.
Even when spoken of as usefulness, it has multifaceted aspects. Usefulness is not just about improving efficiency or making possible what was not possible before. Balancing usefulness from many perspectives such as cost efficiency, quality, safety, security, understandability, maintainability, response to past and future legacy, social and ethical aspects, is necessary. The more stakeholders there are, the different the emphasized aspects. All these need to be considered, and a persistent effort is required to find the optimal point.
Full-stack, in the field of information and communication system engineering, means comprehensively understanding different technical areas such as software, hardware, and network communication. Generally, these systems are designed and developed by gathering specialists from each field of software, hardware, and network communication, but without a full-stack engineer who can understand the entire system, the system’s design and development will be difficult, and the usefulness of the completed system will be very poor.
Therefore, thinking of expanding the field of engineering further, full-stack engineers who can comprehensively grasp knowledge from various fields are needed. In new fields, not only natural sciences and technology but also social sciences and humanities knowledge will be necessary. A interdisciplinary full-stack that can apply these academic knowledge to pursue usefulness is sought after.
Architecture, in the field of information and communication system engineering, refers to the basic structure that serves as the foundation for the system being developed. In other words, architectural design defines the core and frame of the system. Not only deciding the shape of the core and frame, but also where to stabilize rigidly, where to make flexible, and what parts to open to the outside are determined. During this time, physical, logical, and conceptual aspects of the core and frame are considered.
When expanding the field of engineering, how to make this architecture is also an important perspective.
Toward an Engineering-Centric Perspective
Generally, engineering is seen as the application of science. However, as the limits of scientific approaches are revealed, the importance of engineering approaches will increase. This means transitioning to an engineering-centric perspective where science appears as just one tool of engineering.
If the tool of science does not progress, there will be no progress in engineering. On the other hand, even if science progresses, whether to use it or not is in the hands of engineering. Engineering holds the judgment and control of science and technology, not just the application of science.
In this sense, there exists a double feedback loop where by creating a feedback loop to control various objects in society, engineering itself is also strengthened.
In the future, engineering should become interdisciplinary full-stack, and it must become a neo rationality that redefines architecture with appropriate flexibility for various fields.
And today, where excessive expectations and disappointment in so-called experts and scientists have come to light, a new image of engineers as a form of neo rationality is being demanded. This neo engineer image holds full-stack knowledge including not just natural science and technology but also society and culture, and is the subject of intellectual activity that relentlessly pursues usefulness.
This neo engineer has both aspects: the direction in which traditional engineers expand their knowledge to social sciences and humanities, and the direction in which experts involved in society and culture acquire technical knowledge and engineering skills. In this sense, the neo engineer image has diversity. And it is desirable that the basic knowledge of the neo engineering becomes literacy that many people should possess more or less.
Conclusion
You may wonder if the knowledge required for the neo engineer, which is multifaceted and full-stack, will not be vast in amount.
Engineering can be divided and shared by multiple people. Therefore, there is a way to gather a large number of engineers, each with their own areas of expertise.
On the other hand, indeed, engineers with full-stack knowledge are also necessary. They play the role of architect, in charge of designing the basic architecture.
The full-stack knowledge required by this neo architect, who considers not only systems and buildings but also society and culture, demands breadth in the target field, but knowledge that transcends diverse fields is more important than broad knowledge in each field. It may be called interdisciplinary similarity or connectivity. It is the understanding of the core and frame parts in each field. With that knowledge, the architect’s role is fulfilled by leaving the detailed knowledge of the contents to specialized engineers in each field.
If we can shape knowledge equivalent to such interdisciplinary core and frame, it will serve the role of engineers and architects in the neo engineering.
