Exploring the Impact of 'Make, Think, Imagine' on Future Engineering and Research
However, Brown is not just an engineer but also a philosopher and having served as chief executive officer of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, he also understands the importance of the social, ethical, and legal dimensions of technology.
The many technological props and systems that Brown describes include brain-machine interfaces, intelligible machines and computational neurophenomenology; intelligent prostheses; solid and soft robots; and various machines for collective, swarm, and robot-human cognition and action.
He also considers long-term research into naturally occurring phenomena: "biologically inspired hydrogenase" or potential "proteins farmed from the air". Brown's future is very plural and very physical, and this is surely right.
The ratio of the physical to the imaginative, or equipment to systems, will of course depend on the kind of research and development one wants to encourage. In this respect, not every technology will be equal. However, one thing does follow: there is no one-size-fits-all answer to research and development, so why dunk the philosophy of technology into the Procrustean bed of the inducement condition?
The Concept of 'Make, Think, Imagine'
Make, Think, Imagine, a publication written by John Naughton in 2019, provides insights into the relevance of the study of the humanities in the future practice of engineering and research. The title of this publication is inspired by the structure of the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge in the 1930s, which was a model of a small research station.
The principle of the station was 'Make, Think, Make, Imagine'. In italics in the publication, Naughton writes our version of that principle. The insight that this paper explores is the impact that 'Make, Think, Imagine' might have in the future in the practice of engineering and research.
The premise is not that trainee engineering researchers might want to go and do arts or sciences. This paper does not convey information in that superficial simplistic way.
It would be tedious, given the challenges we face with understanding how human creativity and insight might work, let alone enhance them. The premise offered is more profound than that. The premise is that the concept of 'Make, Think, Imagine' encompasses the essence of the interweave of science and the arts and that the experiential mix of humans who complete a humanities degree equips them to innovate in that criss-cross intersection.
The 'Make, Think, Imagine' concept has a long and intriguing history that eventually morphed into creativity - the fuse between art and science - design thinking and augmentations of problem-solving approaches.
It entailed actively experiencing a workshop to understand and unpack the science of wood and the generic exploration of things - stories and maps, performance, materials, and artifacts. An impulse of the concept is that real, practical, hands-on knowledge of 'how things work in the world' delivers unique - and important - insights.
A researcher needs some of that. And a researcher can get that from the foundational laboratory experiences in engineering (Make), in science (e.g. lab classes, dissertation experiments), in the arts - and in the humanities. There is a nexus, articulated in this paper, that ensures the humanities researchers are actually extremely well-equipped to innovate and create in such a liberal crossover environment and have a degree of sovereign resilience.
Historical Background
In 1543, as Europe was being wrenched from a long period of introspection by a developing sea, Copernicus published "On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres." In it, he argued that the Earth was not motionless in space, with the sun, moon, planets, and stars circling around it as its regally focused pivot and hub. Rather, it was one of several orbiting bits.
At the start of the second half of the twentieth century, it was natural for Lord Henry Fleeming, the pioneer in the development of international telegraphy cables in the United Kingdom, to frame his report as a secularly thrilling and philanthropically rewarding extension of that Copernican shift in perspective.
He demanded why real communication, that is "the exchange of thoughts, of thinkings," couldn't follow the same general route as transmitting facts, that is "working news?"
So, let us envision a course through which we can imaginatively link a number of particular moments in Copernican history to the four-word phrase 'Make' 'Think' 'Imagine.' We should, at the same time, acknowledge the possibility that the history which this course insists is the case may appear to be only a stylized rendering of the tangled and flourishing thicket of endeavors, commitments, and values that leads, descending an unlooked-for footpath, covertly to where we now stand.
In this way, not only Copernicus in his natural philosophy, but Wittgenstein, in his compact publishing project, provides us with a graphic demonstration: showing, in his always-pictured case of the movement of the sphere of the sky, revealing for him the "maximum sum of surprise" of something we have nowadays become, a mercy to call engineering a freerimmed meshing together of 'Make' 'Think' 'Imagine'-at).
What does it mean to envision 'Make, Think, Imagine' as an approach to the doing of future engineering and research? In this paper, we explore this question through the historic foreground—when and how, where, and with whom, and under what circumstances, did the phrase first appear?
And, how have these origins then evolved and been shaped? With this, we aim to situate how, with what tools and materials, motes and beams, volume doses, and temperature coefficients, objects, subjects, systems, and collections of worlds, we reach out for the horizon, that out-of-breath comber, to the new coast and to a new world.
Key Principles
A number of key principles are foundational to the 'Make, Think, Imagine' concept and guide the way it can critically intervene in engineering and research. These four principles each are a basis for an affective and reflective way of approaching design, engineering practice, and research, and they serve to clarify how to approach a topic 'from the inside' and from 'in-between'.
That is, the M-T-I research is grounded in a capacity for reflexivity, autoethnography, and some degree of transparency in the process that leads us to the complexity of the relations we are enacting.
- 'The make': A generative circle of design, a testing of materiality, and an expression. The M-T-I critical engineering design is not pursued as a conceptual account or prior to intervention but arises in a continual testing and refinement.
We must evaluate, test, and discover the making process itself as the grounds for aesthetic design. It is not simply a matter of designing snazzy artifacts or aesthetic outcomes; the aesthetics are discovered in the overlooked make (the techne), the process of materialization itself.
- 'The think': Bathetic and systemic analysis. The making process needs to be supplemented by a process of deeper (systems and post-human) reflection, which allows humans to potentially be or become compatible again. This is a process of separation – 'bracketing off the affect that the activity produces' – which is accomplished by, first of all, at least recognizing the feelings. In effect, it is to give to the that moves in between the fields.
Applications in Engineering and Research
'Make, think, imagine' is also finding its way into engineering and research. Thus, you have someone revealing that the approach is creating tidal waves in materials. In the specific area of materials science, 'this approach has triggered an explosion of research.'
It is influencing the way we construct computer models to look at nanoscale science, showing us 'that even simple materials and structures can become remarkably complex if we offer oxygen vacancies good job prospects,' and requiring 'a whole new re-engineering of the functional materials constructing process.'
This approach is also 'redefining design in materials, seemingly turning the tables on our capabilities to manipulate and control!'
Materials science research is devoted to discovering and designing novel properties and functionalities of materials. An innovative way to designing materials, aside from the conventional solution of predicting and consequently looking up from our simulations, is to purposefully write or machine materials from the various atomic and/or molecular states, and then inquire of what these target-driven simulated inputs tell us about the materials' mechanical, thermal, and/or electrical responses.
Since the launch of 'Make, Think, Imagine,' major scientific breakthroughs have been reported, unveiling explosive evidence of new design opportunities of practical devices and materials. In robotics and machine learning, 'Make, Think, Imagine' is influencing the future applications of AI, LIDAR, IoT, 3D printing, and the world of work.
Innovations in Materials Science
"Make, Think, Imagine" has a significant focus on materials science, and these developments are likely to also impact wider engineering in the future. Indeed, examples are presented as a "What's new" feature which is present in that publication.
It has been known for centuries that it is the constituents of a material which influence the properties of the overall structure. However, what has advanced and 'upped the game' in this field are the ability to make materials from these constituents at different length scales and also being able to access the data derived from experimentation on these same length scales.
This has dramatically impacted material discovery, material development, and material application and has resulted in novel material form applications which have been projected to revolutionize engineering in the future.
Examples from the make level include the development of bulk metallic glasses (BMGs). Their ability to retain glass forming ability and underlying inherent solid-state disorder in their glass networked structure has enabled the level of their biological systems to be developed in many unique capabilities including high wear and heat resistance, shorter processing times, reduced production costs, and damage tolerance behaviors when compared to the existing industrial crystalline metallics.
This has opened up the whole new field of bulk metallic glass nano-composites, the mechanical properties of which can be customized over a wide range by control of phase and structural hardening as shown in "Make, Think, Imagine."
Advancements in Robotics and AI
Recent discussions of robotics or AI seem to follow this model of make, think, imagine. In robotics, for instance, we see strong efforts to design robots that, by their motion, convey a natural intention. The robot operates in a world of forces and rigid boundaries whose parameters are unacceptably numerous to compute, but which a skilled person quickly estimates by the gross.
Consequently, the think part of robotics has often given up general logical theories in favor of huge datasets, neural networks, and statistical learning theory. It’s time to imagine the consequences of an approach to design technology that is driven first and foremost by the user’s behaviors, as opposed to the physics of the problem or the logical relationships between its components.
The move to such capabilities demands that we go back to designing based on experimental data as much as over a century ago. However, rather than going back to that classical, reductionist engineering, we now have "big data," "machine learning," and other computational resources that can do it better at a scale we can't even begin to yet fully comprehend.
As we see this transition continue, we expect to see increasing consumer demand for the types of robots and AI we can thus build. Furthermore, we should see greater demands for "smart" or learning solutions in domestic use, for instance, that will drive legislation for the need for these things to better integrate into the messy homes we live in, since law lags technology.
In short, this could change the nature of robotics at a fundamental level in part simply because we have aimed at these technologies with such capacities, such that they currently define what they could look like.
Challenges and Limitations
As we have observed in the chapters that make up this special issue and in the preceding issues of the journal, the concept of 'Make, Think, Imagine' (MTI), with its confluence of empirical knowledge and open speculation, has clearly struck a chord within the research communities of engineering and interdisciplinary creativity.
It therefore seems only right to end with a critique of the weaknesses, challenges, and limitations of the MTI approach, all of which have largely remained hidden thus far beneath the enthusiastic hubbub of debate and discussion.
MTI may not always be a good way of making and doing in research and engineering. It is possible that some, or even all, of the qualities, principles, and outcomes of MTI run directly contrary to the basic foundations and norms of engineering and research.
Some engineering and research problems may, for varied good reasons, turn out to be unresponsive to – and even repellent towards – the tactics and processes of MTI. For all these types of projects, MTI should therefore be approached with caution and with one eye trained on the exit.
Further consideration also needs to be given to the ways in which MTI may have unpalatable, frustrating, or detrimental social consequences within engineering and interdisciplinary creativity research communities.
Finally, and related to all of the above possible limitations and challenges, are the pragmatic restraints on the quality, creativity, and imagination with which it might be practical to extend or implement MTI as an approach to making, thinking, and imagining in research and engineering. These are complex and pivotal issues that would benefit from critical and reflective exploration within live MTI workshop, project, and enterprise settings.
Future Directions and Opportunities
The rise of artificial networks, the explosion in the use and interpretation of various imaging technologies, a changing set of relations between industrial and computing logics, and equally importantly the changing meanings and expectations that operate with them such as interpretability, fairness, integration, and trust have made our initial points of reference a bit of a matter of record.
What we encountered was not previously envisaged or indeed imaginable to any of the engineers and researchers we met. This brings us to a number of possibilities for further work, either individually or within specific collaboration.
- The potential to build upon this work, to generate a greater range of scenarios encompassing a larger number of developments, and to carry out 'reverse impact analysis' to think about what the implications for design and engineering may be of successfully realizing any of these scenarios. This could provide insights and guidance to researchers and research funders based on our best guesses of what might come.
- Using the previous discussions explicitly for teaching and engagement. It is striking that most of the ideas generated in our original program were really interesting and engaging to laypeople. It is plausible that some of the speculative scenarios that we have begun to consider do not have a pre-ordained endpoint in a technological or market feature, but exist purely as areas of sufficient near-term value and uncertainty that it is worth investing significant resources in their investigation.
Video Links
Other Links:
- MAKE, THINK, IMAGINE | Kirkus Reviews
- Collaborative Approaches to Creating Community-Based Solutions
- Makers & Maker Movements: What is Maker Culture?