OVERVIEW

A ll i s h euristic. I make no small hypothesis. This modern ^[*] is the heuristic from which will emerge a universal method. It is this public statement I keep constantly before me on my desk and the one that each of us should inscribe on the ceilings of our studies to answer the question, "What do I know?" As with all koans, once the claim A ll i s h euristic is truly understood, it ceases to be paradoxical and establishes a standard of judgment against which an understanding of a universal method may be tested.

This understanding begins as the engineer's world expands to encompass each of our own worlds. The previous three parts of this discussion have examined the art that brought the engineer's vast collage of individual creations into being. Although each of these achievements should be prized for its usefulness and beauty, the heuristics the engineer used to bring them into existence were often crude, and the man-made world frequently appears as a collection of random pieces stuck together in an unaesthetic jumble. Primitive though the engineer's art is, it will serve as a model for the only art possible. To the generalization of engineering we must now turn, replacing the unrefined bits and pieces of the engineer with the sweeping brushstrokes of the human species. The canvas becomes the world; our school, modern.

We will investigate this generalization in six steps. First, we consider...