Knowledge, Context, Purpose

They say the forest can be hidden by the trees, yet the devil is in the details, and in any case, he who increases knowledge, increases pain.

Knowledge comes in many forms, including books, movies, and technical documentation. The latter encompasses manufacturing and assembly publications, engineering design work methods, software manuals, and it strives to make the respective processes as efficient and error-free as possible. Some data may be excluded depending on the defined context; embedding fiction in the documentation is considered malicious.

In comparison, various sacred texts and works of art are free to include fiction and vague metaphors. Sacred texts aim to provide a comprehensive existential narrative, while books and movies function more like specialized tooling for human consciousness. The earlier a person is exposed to a particular point of view, the harder it is to change it later, similar to machined parts.

Once upon a time, I adored the magnificent mischief of ‘Fight Club.’ While still enjoying its artistic quality, I am saddened by its precise depiction of a society lacking a reasonably divine purpose. Without a greater spiritual goal, a Great War, or a Great Depression, it is sliding into the abyss.

Just as the Torah forbids eating certain types of food, an aerospace company may contextualize its distrust towards PLM/CAD vendors‘ enticing promises and avoid using proprietary features by restricting engineering modeling practices to STEP AP242 compatibility. This creates artificial boundaries, yet it frees users to find new ways to meet the same intentions while strategically enabling long-term archiving and protecting the company from vendor lock-in for decades to come. Similarly, standardizing PMI practices saves engineers’ effort and the company’s resources when sharing data with suppliers.

Reconstructing the original intent of sacred books and works of art is hard, as it calls for immersion in the contemporary context. For example, the notion of Christmas appeared as part of the late Roman government’s drive to unify its spiritually splintered pagan subjects. It became the happy and almost non-religious Western celebration that we are all familiar with only centuries later.

Manufacturing ‘pubs’ come in PDF format, often to be printed and distributed across the shop floor. Nowadays, they are either obtained from ancient scans or generated from modern S1000D-compliant XML-based datasets along with their external dependencies, such as drawings and graphic files. Reconstructing these publications into their quasi-original format for the MES/MRO consumption has always been convoluted; fortunately, based on Senticore’s research, it is becoming feasible with a little help from generative AI, neural networks, and graphs.

While the lifecycle of sacred texts tends to be extremely long, and any alterations can be harrowing and bloody to implement, cultural artifacts are susceptible to both overt and covert manipulation. Think of repurposing Hagia Sophia into a mosque, sticking warnings to Rudyard Kipling‘s poems, disappearing a scene from ‘Home Alone,’ or remaking old beloved movies into something the original authors would have considered an abomination. Here, only the form remains the same, while the fit and function are twisted to satisfy the latest ruling priesthood. Fortunately for those concerned, secondhand bookstores, and digital archives stashing PDF and MP4 files are here today to mitigate the phenomenon.

In contrast, technical documentation must always go through traceable iterations as the products evolve to incorporate new materials, new design concepts, or new requirements. Failing to update downstream manuals correctly can be expensive or outright dangerous, as the Boeing 737-MAX affair demonstrated amply. On a side note, Senticore has successfully experimented with tracing such changes using a combination of Form-Fit-Function-based uniqueness math and graph-based contexts.

It is this time of the year. Miracles happen, the pendulum has swung back in 2024, and the collective West has received another lease on life in terms of spirit, technology, and industrial revival. Among other things, I hope to watch Kevin walking through a hotel lobby properly (again), and I am looking forward to Senticore‘s continued collaboration with our customers and partners – using our extensive knowledge, for a good purpose, in the right context.

Merry Christmas, ladies and gentlemen!