An Engineering Education of Holism: Einstein's Imperative

*Linda Vanasupa and Gilda Barabino*

## **Abstract**

In the aftermath of World War II, Einstein urged scientists to develop a substantively new thinking, lest we suffer a technology-enabled self-destruction. In this chapter, we will unfold the emerging scientific findings that serve as vectors, pointing to the same conclusion: the educational foundation that has brought about Industry 5.0 is causal to brain development that not only undermines our ability to address our emerging complex societal challenges, but biases us toward inhumane logic. We will outline a science of holism, the profoundly new thinking urged by Einstein. This science is rooted in nature's ontology of dynamic complexity. An engineering education reflecting this new thinking will be described along with the novel developmental capacities afforded by it. The chapter will end by considering questions that need to be resolved to manifest such a radical shift in engineering education.

**Keywords:** holism, holistic science, dynamic complexity, autopoiesis, emergence, health

### **1. Introduction: health intended; fragmentation produced**

As we share these insights, we are aware that engineering education varies across cultures. Any insights are likely limited to the things we have in common. So, we begin with making clear our point of view (POV), which is derived from being immersed in engineering education in the United States since 1981. This education system is theoretically intended as the means to a profession that is dedicated to serving the well-being of society above all other considerations [1]. This purported purpose of engineering was not the core of our engineering education and subsequent teaching. The core was math and science, by which we are referring to the schools of western scientific thought, taught in English and traced to Thomas Aquinas, Francis Bacon, René Descartes, and Isaac Newton. Very briefly, as described by Capra and Luisi [2], Aquinas integrated scientific reason with faith, elevating what was scientific philosophy to God-given truth. The works of Bacon, Descartes and Newton served to produce an organized study of inanimate objects—changed only when acted on by force—and methods suitable for the study of such objects. Hidden in these paradigmatic shifts from philosophy to truth were assumptions and values that have functioned to shape our world as we know it today. Language is also relevant for its intimate coupling to our neurology [3]; like assumptions and values, its hidden structure unconsciously shapes our behavior [4, 5].

Our aspiration for engineering education, or all of education, is that of global health—societal and environmental, which we believe to be inextricably intertwined. However, at the moment of writing this, our country is reeling from what is apparently a systemic education gone wrong, writ large, and enabled by science and engineering. We 'westerners' imagine that our science and education support peaceful citizenship and democratic governance. Hundreds of years into this grand social experiment, the evidence suggests otherwise. Systemic patterns reveal our western education is most reliably producing fragmentation rather than health. In some ways, it is not surprising that a methodology of learning ("science") that is based on fragmenting the whole into its constituent parts does not produce health, the root of which is Old English hælþ "wholeness, a being whole, sound or well' [6]. As physicist David Bohm observed, "fragmentation is now very widespread, not only throughout society, but also in each individual; and this is leading to a kind of general confusion of the mind, which creates an endless series of problems and interferes with our clarity of perception so seriously as to prevent us from being able to solve most of them." (p. 1, [7]).

What we did not account for in our social experiment with 'western' scientific education, was the effect that education would have on our selves. In a recent book, Henrich [8] documents the research that shows that brains and behavior of western-educated adults differ in dramatic ways from their global peers. Specifically, these individuals, which Henrich describes as western-educated, industrialized, rich and democratic (WEIRD), have a default tendency to focus on parts within a visual field, whereas their non-WEIRD peers see the whole. Unsurprisingly, WEIRD individuals tend to view the world with the analytical thinking of the reductionist science that is core to western and engineering education. Reductionism and its methods assume a world of objects, held separate from and independent of the observer; its aim is to prove or disprove hypotheses about cause and effect. Reductionism is useful for manipulating the physical world for predictable outcomes but is not fit for the purpose of working with living beings. What this means for WEIRD people is a tendency to see human behavior as caused by traits of the individual whereas their non-WEIRD peers are more likely to reason that peoples' behavior is a reaction to the systemic conditions—a more holistic interpretation. WEIRD people tend to employ limited moral logics that rely on what are viewed as "autonomous" actions by individuals [9]. Non-WEIRD subjects draw on a multitude of moral logics that include autonomous action and presume ones' inseparability from communities. In short, western education conditions people to see the world in a fragmented, rather than holistic way.

Henrich's analysis of WEIRD subjects does not address the effects of the English language as the medium of WEIRD-ness. However, cognitive scientists recognize that language is neurologically embodied [5, 10]. For example, Lakoff and Johnson describe semantic frames in the English language which focus attention to what are considered salient features, causing unconscious entailments on peoples' behavior [4]. Might the language of engineering, deriving from military roots in the U.S., subconsciously condition behavior? Even the basic syntax of English-- *subject acts (on) object*--is noteworthy as a mental model of change. The English syntax is both linear and self-assertive. In contrast, the meaning of Chinese characters change with context; one must be attentive to context to understand meaning. Learning from written Chinese characters is essentially a practice in attentiveness to context. These brain practices required by the language may contribute to the results seen in a test for analytical v. holistic logic: Sixty percent of people from English speaking countries like the U.S., U.K. and Australia used analytical logic whereas sixty to ninety percent of people from China (depending on region) used holistic logic [11]. This result suggests that one's first language and its structure strongly condition

#### *An Engineering Education of Holism: Einstein's Imperative DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.99211*

one's attention, with Chinese students practicing more holistic logics. There is a dramatic increase of Chinese college students studying in English speaking countries (i.e., U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia), from the early 2000's on [12]. How do the logics of these Chinese students compare to their western-educated peers? This is an important question that the research literature in English does not yet seem to address.

Functional MRI studies of WEIRD subjects by Jack et al. [13, 14] point to patterns akin to what Henrich and others reported. They found that the neural networks active in reasoning about objects in the physical world have an antagonistic relationship between the activity regions that require social and moral reasoning (i.e., one's relationship to the whole of society). When one is using the logics needed for working with objects, the neural circuitry that considers others, emotion and context, is inactive. The finding that different regions of the brain are accessed for different logics is not in itself surprising or problematic. However, in a follow up study by Jack et al. involving WEIRD subjects, they found moral concern and analytical reasoning to be inversely related [15]. In particular, people biased toward analytical reasoning were also inclined to draw upon these same dehumanized logics in situations that call for contextual, humanized reasoning, particularly when the situation involved ambiguity. Other studies involving western educated and non-western educated subjects have shown that priming subjects to use analytical reasoning results in less humane and less altruistic decisions [16, 17].

While some engineering curricula require general education, the engineering appetite for technical knowledge in the U.S. has had a magnetic pull on our attention as predicted by the sociologist, Jürgen Habermas. He suggested that knowledge and the methods for acquiring it are constituted by the purpose, whether that is to control the physical world (*technical*), to work with people (*practical*) or to liberate one from their thinking (*emancipatory*). These knowledge-constituent interests produce three types of sciences that hold different assumptions, **Table 1**. Habermas predicted that technical understanding would take on a life of its own in modern societies, becoming the sole means, even when it is not fit for purpose [18]. Examples of using technical approaches for issues that require practical approaches are high-stakes educational tests for 'improving' education and the increasing use


*\* Liberation indicates the process by which models and paradigms are revealed as such, introducing both consciousness and choice where they were artificially constrained.*

#### **Table 1.**

*Habermas' types of sciences produced by his theorized knowledge-constitutive interests. From [19], adapted [20]. Used with permission.*

of technology to police society. These approaches amplify rather than solve the problems.

These patterns are pointing to a simple principle that legacy engineering education does not account for: Learning/knowing alters our minds [21]; structure conditions behavior. Most significantly for education, our neurological structure conditions our attention and thought. These emerging findings are weak signals of a concerning pattern: engineering education based on a foundation of reductionist science contains the risk of educating professionals who are diminished in their ability to see, feel and reason in humane, holistic ways. From Bohm,

*"…each individual human being has been fragmented into a large number of separate and conflicting compartments, according to his different desires, aims, ambitions, loyalties, psychological characteristics, etc., to such an extent that it is generally accepted that some degree of neurosis is inevitable, …the attempt to live according to the notion that the fragments are really separate is, in essence, what has led to the growing series of extremely urgent crises that [are] confronting us today…this way of life has brought about pollution, destruction of the balance of nature, over-population, world-wide economic and political disorder, and the creation of an overall environment that is neither physically nor mentally healthy for most of the people who have to live in it." (p. 176 [7]).*

In short, a global engineering education at the emergence of Industry 5.0 must reframe engineering and develop a substantively new thinking as Einstein urged [22], lest we suffer a technology-enabled self-destruction.

### **2. Re-new thinking: embrace holism for engineering education**

*"A human being is a part of the whole, called by us 'Universe,' a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest— a kind of optical delusion of this consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole nature in its beauty." (p. 20 [23]).*

What Einstein asserts is that the nature of the Universe is whole. Wholeness or Health, is a non-separable condition that exists prior to us. The fragmentation in 'western' science can be traced to Eurocentric philosophies from the 13-16th centuries, as described by Capra and Luisi [2]. By 1926, the South African statesman Jan Smuts advocated a return to the ancient Greek philosophy that he called "holism",

*"the ultimate synthetic, ordering, organizing, regulative activity in the universe which accounts for all the structural groupings and synthesis in it, from the atom and the physico-chemical structures, [through] the cell and organisms, through Mind in animals, to Personality of man. The all-pervading and ever-increasing character of synthetic unity or wholeness in these structures leads to the concept of Holism as the fundamental activity underlying and co-ordinating all others, and to the view of the universe as a Holistic Universe." (p. 317 [24]).*

This notion of holism is not new; it has been embedded in indigenous cultures for centuries in many forms. For example, Native Americans like the Iroquois tribes

#### *An Engineering Education of Holism: Einstein's Imperative DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.99211*

believed that every decision should be made in consideration of how it will affect seven generations (i.e., 7 x 100 years) into the future, recognizing their present moment to be intertwined with a future one. They also viewed themselves as part of a web of life with nature as a collaborator, leading to a sustainable relationship with nature, prior to the genocide inflicted upon them by white men. As seen in such indigenous societies, adopting wholeness and health as the fundamental nature of reality opens onto a landscape of radically different interpretations, methods, practices and capacities.

Consider that our societal challenges, amplified by technology, are holistic in nature (e.g., anthropogenic climate change). They therefore require an engineering that is grounded in holism. In other words, reductionism is a mental model incommensurate with the phenomena it is attempting to address; by analogy, an engineer cannot incorrectly conceive of gravity as a force that operates parallel to the surface of the earth and expect a gravity-reliant design to function as planned. Even in cultures that are traditionally more holistic, such as the case for China, there is recent advocacy for holistic research approaches [25–27].

To be more effective in engineering, our challenge is to develop an organized practice of working with holism. Such a science would encompass and use reductionist knowledge when fit for purpose, but would expand our POV and methods in important ways. How would a holistic science differ from the legacy science? How would a holistic science provide benefit to society? We explore these questions in the following sections.
