But nobody has done it before. Even the very first computer mouse used off-the-shelf mechanical and electrical components, each of those involved at least one type of technology that took a scientist or engineer's entire lifetime to develop.
> The key is navigable access to the right information which is sadly dependent on A) willingness to document, and B) structuring of the set of data for navigable retrieval.
Now you mention the importance of documentation, it reminds me of Vannevar Bush's Memex and Ted Nelson's Project Xanadu. So it seems that there's a mutual misunderstanding of the actual topic in this debate. We understood the debate as:
* The all-knowing engineer: Whether it's possible for a single individual to learn and understand a technology entirely, down to its every aspect and detail.
Meanwhile, you're in fact debating about different problem, which is:
* The Engineering Library of Alexandria: Whether we can create sufficient documentation of all technical knowledge, the documentation is so complete about every aspect and detail that in principle, it would allow someone to open the "blackboxes" behind every technology for understanding or replication if they really want and need to. Whether or not it can be done in practice by a single physical person is unimportant, perhaps only one or a few blackboxes are opened at a time, not all simultaneously. The question is whether the preserved information is sufficient to allow that in theory. This is similar to the definition of falsifiability in science - impractical experiments still count.
If you're really arguing the second point rather than the first point, I would then say that I can finally understand some of your arguments. So much unproductive conversions can be avoided if you've expressed your points more clearly.
But nobody has done it before. Even the very first computer mouse used off-the-shelf mechanical and electrical components, each of those involved at least one type of technology that took a scientist or engineer's entire lifetime to develop.
> The key is navigable access to the right information which is sadly dependent on A) willingness to document, and B) structuring of the set of data for navigable retrieval.
Now you mention the importance of documentation, it reminds me of Vannevar Bush's Memex and Ted Nelson's Project Xanadu. So it seems that there's a mutual misunderstanding of the actual topic in this debate. We understood the debate as:
* The all-knowing engineer: Whether it's possible for a single individual to learn and understand a technology entirely, down to its every aspect and detail.
Meanwhile, you're in fact debating about different problem, which is:
* The Engineering Library of Alexandria: Whether we can create sufficient documentation of all technical knowledge, the documentation is so complete about every aspect and detail that in principle, it would allow someone to open the "blackboxes" behind every technology for understanding or replication if they really want and need to. Whether or not it can be done in practice by a single physical person is unimportant, perhaps only one or a few blackboxes are opened at a time, not all simultaneously. The question is whether the preserved information is sufficient to allow that in theory. This is similar to the definition of falsifiability in science - impractical experiments still count.
If you're really arguing the second point rather than the first point, I would then say that I can finally understand some of your arguments. So much unproductive conversions can be avoided if you've expressed your points more clearly.