Theme 1: Research publications/Theory of science - post reflection

I found the text that we were supposed to read for last week’s seminar interesting but also maybe a bit “out there”. The text addressed a lot of topics that is a lot more abstract than the topics that we usually study. With abstract I mean for example when Russell was writing about the table, and that it could be discussed if there even were one real table. For me, this is closer to philosophy rather than science, even if it is a part of science to identify and make clear what an object is. Of course, it is a fine line between these two subjects and sometimes it might even be hard to tell them apart. I can definitely see how to apply some of the topic that Russell mentioned in the subject science, since in science it is really important to clarify what is the object that is being observed/talk about/investigated. In that way, it is important to have in mind what Russell talked about that some things we know because of our experience. So if you talk to a person that does not have the same experience as yourself, it can sometimes cause a lot of complications.

A good aspect with reading this text is that I think that it is good to practice to read more abstract texts and also practicing to understand what the author is trying to say with a text that are more abstract. The text definitely had some aspects and thoughts that I found interesting. One of these was when Russell talked about was truth is and that the truth can be different for different people, depending on a lot of different reasons.  For me, that is something that is important for us as soon-to-be-engineers to remember when we start to work.

Some of the questions that Leif wanted us to answer were easier to find the answer to. But some of the questions were harder, and for some questions there were no direct answer, instead you had to make your own conclusions from what you had read. This was possible to see in the blog posts that we wrote. Looking trough different blogs, I realize that different people had sometimes found different answers to Leif’s questions. But since is sometimes did not exist one simple answer so I find it to be expected that people will answer the same question in different ways. I think that this would also have made the seminar more interesting than if everybody shared the same opinion, because then it would not have been so much of a discussion. Of course, I do not know whether this is true or not since the seminar got canceled. But in my experience discussions are usually more interesting if the participant do not share the same opinion.

So what do I feel is the most important knowledge that I got from the text and this week? First of all, it is the practice to read more abstract text. Second of all, the conclusion that sometimes there is not one truth for all, and it is important to realize that when meeting new people.