Dear Jayathi, Read below.
-- *Mar*Below is a *serious, institution-level dialogue* between *you (Y. M. Sarma)* and an *Engineering & Technology University*, written as a collective voice (Vice-Chancellor, Dean, and Faculty). The tone is *firm, challenging, and philosophical*, reflecting the structural tension between *engineering rationality* and *Macro Psychology / non-Cartesian thought*. ------------------------------ *A Conversation: Macro Psychology vs an Engineering & Technology University* *Participants:* *Y. M. Sarma (S)* – Proponent of Macro Psychology *The University (U)* – Represented by the Vice-Chancellor (VC), Dean of Engineering (DE), and Senior Professor of AI (AI) ------------------------------ *VC:* Professor Sarma, welcome. We appreciate unconventional ideas, but our mandate is clear—engineering, innovation, and technological solutions for national development. *S:* Thank you. My concern is precisely with *what kind* of development your solutions are accelerating. ------------------------------ *DE:* Our graduates build infrastructure, energy systems, automation. These are measurable contributions. *S:* Measurable in output, not in consequence. You teach students how to build, not how to listen—to land, climate, or life. ------------------------------ *AI:* Engineering solves problems. Climate change itself is an engineering problem—carbon capture, geo-engineering, smarter systems. *S:* Climate change is not a technical error; it is a psychological and epistemological one. You are trying to repair a worldview failure with more tools from the same worldview. ------------------------------ *VC:* That is a philosophical critique. We are a technical university. *S:* That sentence is your crisis. By refusing philosophy, you silently adopt a bad one—Cartesian reductionism. ------------------------------ *DE:* Reductionism works. Bridges stand. Aircraft fly. *S:* Yes. And rivers die, soils erode, species vanish. Your success at small scales becomes catastrophe at large ones. ------------------------------ *AI:* You underestimate adaptive technology. AI will optimize resource use. *S:* Optimize for what? Speed? Profit? Control? Optimization without ethics is merely faster extraction. ------------------------------ *VC:* Are you suggesting we abandon engineering? *S:* No. I am suggesting you abandon *engineering without ecology*. Teach students that every structure participates in living systems. ------------------------------ *DE:* Our curriculum already includes environmental studies. *S:* As an appendix. Nature appears in your syllabi as a constraint, not as a co-designer. ------------------------------ *AI:* You speak of Macro Psychology. What place does psychology have in engineering? *S:* Every technology externalizes a psychology. Factories express domination. Surveillance systems express distrust. Automation expresses impatience with life. ------------------------------ *VC:* That is interpretation, not engineering. *S:* Interpretation is unavoidable. You merely hide it behind equations. ------------------------------ *DE:* We deal with facts, not emotions. *S:* Climate collapse is an emotional fact. So is mass anxiety, ecological grief, and alienation. Your graduates inherit these whether you teach them or not. ------------------------------ *AI:* What would you add to our university? *S:* A living laboratory—free nature, untampered. A department that studies how technologies alter perception, not just efficiency. A core course: *Technology as a Psychological and Ecological Force.* ------------------------------ *VC:* That would dilute technical rigor. *S:* No. It would mature it. A child builds without foresight. An adult builds with restraint. ------------------------------ *DE:* Industry demands skills, not restraint. *S:* Industry demands obedience. Universities should cultivate intelligence. ------------------------------ *AI:* Suppose we ignore your proposal. *S:* Then your graduates will continue designing systems that destabilize the planet—and spend their later years engineering “solutions” to disasters they helped create. ------------------------------ *VC:* You place a heavy moral burden on us. *S:* You already carry it. You just outsourced responsibility to the market. ------------------------------ *DE:* Engineering changed the world. *S:* Yes. Now the world is asking engineering to change itself. ------------------------------ *VC:* If we accepted even part of your vision, where would we begin? *S:* Begin by admitting this: *Technology is not neutral.* Once you admit that, Macro Psychology becomes inevitable. ------------------------------ *(Silence among the panel.)* ------------------------------ *Closing Reflection (Narrator)* The university realizes it has trained hands faster than minds, tools faster than wisdom. Macro Psychology does not weaken engineering—it asks it to grow up. ------------------------------ If you wish, I can: - Turn this into a *formal proposal dialogue* - Add *student voices or an accreditation board* - Make it *more adversarial or more collaborative* - Convert it into a *policy document or keynote debate* Just guide the next step. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/thatha_patty/CACDCHCLEXbr_xWHGOoKxDv0k2o-5Ta0ZM7efLfdGwUGdTrsVew%40mail.gmail.com.
