Software engineering is a modern methodology used to represent a system, any system, in terms of models and actions. Computer scientists define the core principle of software engineering as “Modeling & Simulation”. Which simply a computerized representation of particular entities in the universe (Modeling) and how these entities interact and be interacted with (Simulation).
In general, the modeling and simulation process tries to solve a particular problem in our world. For instance, if we are trying to solve a problem of finding the best design for a city, we may model all the structures a city may have and the streets that connect these structures then simulate traffic going in and out of the city to find the most optimum design from an architecture standpoint.
Modeling and simulation make it much easier to solve any given problem at the lowest cost possible in any real-world given problem.
Before the age of computers, scientists relied solely on mathematical representations to try to solve and understand certain phenomena in the universe by applying certain rules of physics to run multiple experimentations at the lowest cost possible.
That is because some of these mathematical representations may reveal not just what is costly to try in the real-world, but what can’t be achieved solely by humans due to natural and technological limitations. For instance, understanding a black hole or discovering what lies beyond the event horizon can only be achieved today by scientific theories represented by mathematical equations and computer programs that predict based on proven patterns and universal physical laws what may or may not be beyond a certain point of physical limitation.
What scientists used to calculate manually using their brain power can now be executed at faster and more accurate rates using computers.
But computer systems themselves went through multiple iterations of evolution to reach the state they are in today. Computers used to be mainly used to execute simulations for a particular pattern that was manually discovered or proposed by scientists. Today these very computer systems have become discoverers of these patterns. Especially in the age of machine learning and artificial intelligence.
These computerized pattern discovery systems couldn’t have possibly been so successful if the universe around us wasn’t itself a system that follows certain rules and represents certain patterns that can be formulated as mathematical equations and programmed as code.
Unveiling universal patterns is humanity’s best way of discovering places where a man never been and times when a man have never lived. Additionally, patterns help us explain certain events around us, and gives us the ultimate clues of how to solve particular problems that abide by the same rules and patterns.
For example, if a person bought a system that is highly complex and tried to use it without reading the manual that came with that system, the likability of this person being unable to use the complex system or even worse destroying it is very high.
Patterns are the manual of the universe around us. They help us understand why things happen, where they come from and where they are headed. But more importantly patterns help us understand how-to live-in cohesion with the universal system that we are a part of, and leverage its endless resources for the survival of the humankind and its evolution.
The most common example of understanding a particular pattern in our universe is flying. The universe around us is full of creatures that are able to fly high and low, long and short distances and they come in all shapes and sizes.
When Abbas ibn Firnas tried to experiment with humans having the capability of flying, he wrapped himself in feathers to emulate birds flying. His understanding of the flying pattern was almost accurate except that he didn’t consider alight which eventually hurt his back.
The Algerian historian Ahmad Al-Maqqarri wrote a description of Firnas’ experimentation that included the following:
“Among other very curious experiments which he made, one is his trying to fly. He covered himself with feathers for the purpose, attached a couple of wings to his body, and, getting on an eminence, flung himself down into the air, when according to the testimony of several trustworthy writers who witnessed the performance, he flew a considerable distance, as if he had been a bird, but, in alighting again on the place whence he had started, his back was very much hurt, for not knowing that birds when they alight come down upon their tails, he forgot to provide himself with one.”
Firnas’ as an engineer at a time understood that every living thing around us, including birds, trees, mountains and beyond are simply a universal documentation for humanity to understand the possibilities humans can achieve – but more importantly a message to inspire humanity to fight for its survival and realize its evolution to achieve the true purpose of its very existence.
But the universe in general doesn’t enforce its patterns on its inhabitant of humans. It rather relies on documentation as in other living beings making mistakes and revealing the outcome of these mistakes or enforces a physical limitation that may or may not be overcome with a cost. The cost itself may be a punishment or a reward depending on the outcome of overcoming a certain universal limitation.
Observation, Experimentation then Adjustment have always been the go-to options when it came to understanding the universal patterns around us. Because understanding a pattern doesn’t quite contribute to our evolution as humans until we apply these patterns to chase our aspirations and understand our limitations for our survival and evolution.
The universal patterns around us are the keys presented to us before our eyes to solve our most common challenges and answer our hardest questions. And if you look around, you will see everything you can observe is something that can be presented as a model, and its behaviors are its patterns – the pattens that should guide us to succeed and achieve our highest universal goals.
The most common pattern I’ve seen repeating itself within every single aspect of life is the tri-pattern, everywhere I looked, I saw a tri-nature of everything around us. Humans have souls, minds, and bodies. And for each and every part of our nature we have a nested pattern of dependency, operation, and exposure.
For instance, for our minds, we depend on resources such as education, observation, and conversations to enrich our minds with ideas. But these very minds also perform an operation of thinking about everything that it depends on. Then later on, we may choose to expose the results of the thinking operation in terms of words, actions, or simply observable body language.
The same thing happens with out bodies. We depend on food and water to survive and fulfil our body’s needs. But our bodies also process and digest the food to turn it into muscles. Then later on we expose these muscles in terms of actions.
Even in the very nature of our actions they may fall into the tri-nature of patterns, where some actions are targeted towards ourselves like training, some others are toward others like carrying a disabled person or being helped carried as a dependency of survival.
Wherever I go, and wherever I looked, the tri-nature of everything have become very visible, and from that pattern I could knock the door for fulfilment wherever that very existential problem occurred.
But the most interesting thing about patterns, is that they are infinite downwards and upwards – take the atoms for instance, they have the tri-nature in their structure, in the sense that they consist of electrons, protons and neutrons. But if you look deeper into any of the particles of an atom, let’s say the protons, you’d discover that it also applies the tri-nature of structure. It consists of three additional components called quarks that’s the downwards part.
But if you look upwards to a solar system, you’d discover that a solar system also consists of three main components, which are a star – the sun – and planets and moons. And if you look upwards from there, you’d discover that our entire galaxy is also made out of three main components, which are dust, gas, and dark matter.
The nature of having a magical number of three components of anything isn’t really where the pattern lies. It’s the categorical nature of these components that makes up our tri-nature pattern even more interesting – Let’s discuss that in here.
The tri-nature of everything around us indicates that every entity in our universe needs a means of survival and evolution. Every entity around us performs a purpose and a function then contributes to the survival of other entities. It proves that everything is connected in a complex universal system and my aforementioned description is only on the functional physical sphere of things, there are spiritual and intellectual spheres where everything seems to be also connected and their connection is mandated by the aspects of its survival and evolution.
To bring a bit of concrete experience into this theory, I have diligently tried to apply the tri-nature theory on everything I do in my craft as a software engineer. And I have to recognize the tremendous impact this theory has brought into my work. Theories like these help us become more coherent with the universal system, and it supercharges our aspirations and dreams with concrete, observable and recognizable results that would hopefully contribute to the quality of life for all those consuming these systems.
In the second part of this article, I will speak a bit more in detail about how the tri-nature of everything as a theory has helped develop better engineering systems and influence higher quality engineering decisions.