Recovering from Oblivion

Can engineering method save Constitutional democracy?

Photo by Pixabay

NOTE: Within this text, wherever gender is not key to the explanation, I am using the Elverson ey/em construction of the Spivak Pronouns.

Engineers apply their specialized knowledge to the honorable task of designing reliable elevators, intuitive software, and safe bridges. It is challenging work but can become tedious over time. Lucky engineers (and I count myself among them) have been confronted periodically with the ultimate antidote to tedium: the impossible problem. The bridge that cannot possibly span that soggy-bottom river, the electric aircraft that cannot possibly cross the Atlantic without refueling, the research craft that cannot possibly return data from Proxima Centauri within a human lifetime.

When the engineer is confronted with that impossible problem, life once again has meaning. When the problem is presented, the conscious mind is baffled but the unconscious mind rallies and cycles the problem through its myriad neural channels scanning for hidden facts and relationships. For some engineers at that time, the unconscious mind returns nothing; but for a few, the neural signals will line up just right, and a solution to the impossible problem will take root.