Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
What you think is so good about this book for engineers, in a nutshell?
I absorbed as an introduction to the philosophical aspects of quality. Quality is truly a tough concept if approached as a universal truth.
I also had books I can feel I need to read, and yet they are slogs. And then something happens, or I encounter an idea elsewhere, and it is as if something unlocks. And I am diving through the book… until I reach the next roadblock. I definitely would not force it.
Although Pirsig didn't explore it, quality is very much at the heart of any engineering, particularly when you try to quantify it. How effective is ISO-9000? GE was big on that. Boeing measured quality of their builds, until they compromised the process. What about Deming's approach (Total Quality Management)?
What is quality in software engineering? (We often sidestep that question and call it Software Craftsmanship instead). And there's a whole can of worms when we try to apply this to AIs.
Of course in the context of "books useful for engineers".
If you just enjoy someone's couch philosophy - i can totally understand that and agree that the book may be great.
I’m not sure why you keep denigrating it as a couch philosophy. Just curious, are you doing that because you have worked through philosophies from academia or the classics?
In engineering school I was taught to see the world in a special and unique way, to be able to solve engineering problems as a professional. In the book, this worldwiew is very well laid out.
An example:
> Precision instruments are designed to achieve an idea, dimensional precision, whose perfection is impossible. There is no perfectly shaped part of the motorcycle and never will be, but when you come as close as these instruments take you, remarkable things happen, and you go flying across the countryside under a power that would be called magic if it were not so completely rational in every way. It's the understanding of this rational intellectual idea that's fundamental. John looks at the motorcycle and he sees steel in various shapes and has negative feelings about these steel shapes and turns off the whole thing. I look at the shapes of the steel now and I see ideas. He thinks I'm working on parts. I'm working on concepts.