Author: Hien Pham

Truth traps & cams discussion.

Read the introduction/preface & first chapter of Shop Class as Soulcraft (36 pages).

Mark Nelly (fluids expert) on Monday.

Remote Connection: mae-micro-9 (or 10, 11, 12) on remote desktop connection

Chapter 28:

Discussion leader: Rupert

Rupert: Driving in the rain indefinitely, doesn’t know what he’s finding. It inspires him to put Chris on a bus and sell his bike (important)

Jen: He said how his bike is something I’ll have with him his entire life, but this change is significant, like he’s preparing for Phaedrus to come back

Adam: “Quality is a generator of mythos” + men is invented by religion (page 360). When we build our intellectual foundation, it’s built off of what we created à very thought provoking.

Rupert: [goes through the plot]

Taylor: Author is finding parts of Phaedrus admirable, which is a changing, unstable opinion of Phaedrus.
“I hate Phaedrus but Phaedrus is cool”, and maybe Robert is the crazy one, not Phaedrus

Rupert: Robert is the insane one – “The mythos is insane” (page 361)

Cecilia: Author is trying to understand what Phaedrus understood

Reese: Robert has a lot of respect for the ideas that Phaedrus is taking on, but is afraid of Phaedrus in a way and afraid that Phaedrus will take over

Macy: Does Phaedrus still come out after treatment?

Prof. Littman: Yes, especially with the conflict and duality in persona.

Chapter 29:

Rupert: They arrive in California. The Primary America vs the Secondary America. Technology might be to blame for isolating people. Phaedrus vs. Aristotle.

Kate: On people feeling people are sadder – it’s more of an open divide.

Adam: Had a discussion on why communities have fallen apart in America, and on the bond of civic engagement. Technology is to blame. We have this tool to connect, but then communities are better formed with some distance than tightly packed community + tech.

Jen: His comments on Aristotle: very critical (formed a basis for current teaching that’s horrible). Thoughts?

Prof. Littman: Aristotle is the scientist of philosophers, meaning he break things down in a scientific way, with lots of analysis and definitions.

Jen: If Aristotle focused more on the Classic than Romantic, does that mean Robert would identify more with Aristotle than Phaedrus?

Hien: Primary & secondary America – has it changed since?

Kaixing: It’s more a matter of ideologies of modernity vs. past & disconnect from reality.

Prof. Littman: There’s some discussion in the Afterword, comparing between this book & Tom’s Hut. This book was written around the Vietnam War time, with a real rejection of technology among the younger people because of the negativity.

Rupert: Plato vs Aristotle – method of dialectic vs. rhetoric. Phaedrus doesn’t line up with either of them properly. The idea of Quality is for people who contribute to the world.

Chapter 31 & 32:

Taylor: Phaedrus pop back into the discussion more prominently (the “I knew it” statement). If Phaedrus is back, where did Robert go?

Cecilia: Not a switch, but a merge. Gives up the way he’s been pretending to be. More like a resolution.

Prof. Littman: Robert suppressed Phaedrus to get out of the hospital to reach his kids, but now realize his kid likes Phaedrus more than himself, which lets Phaedrus comes out again. Chris was relieved. Also shock therapy only works for a short period of time to suppress personality

Kaixing: Robert’s behavior in the last few chapters is like a cornered animal. Robert realizing that he wasn’t preferable of the two personality.

Reese: Referring to Phaedrus was a stylistic choice, not something reflective of his actual identity.

Jen: When he feels defeated, it’s more like Chris helps him feel that he doesn’t have to keep struggling and can just let Phaedrus come back.

Prof. Littman: Thoughts on ending?

Barry: The end was surprising that the author couldn’t find a middle ground and had to go to either of the extremes

Kate: Surprised at how happy the ending was, like a Hollywood ending to a book that had so much nuance to it.

Jen: Thought that Robert was the better persona for Chris, but the opposite was true.

Afterword:

Summary: Before Chris’s 23^rd birthday, he’s mugged & killed. Author wondered where Chris went, his wife became pregnant again. They had a little girl despite his unwillingness, and that’s how Chris came back into his life.

Prof. Littman: From the afterword – the book came out at the right time, being a culture bearer.

Ben: Fabric. Is there something that will break someone’s fabric but not somebody else’s, or a universal fabric.

Kate & Prof. Littman: Practical Ethics – abortion. Are lives replaceable?

Thoughts on the book?

50-50 on neutral & enjoyment

(I personally feel like I didn’t get all I could out of it due to a lack of understanding of many philosophical issues and will read it again with some better research. It had many thought-provoking ideas that was still very exciting though, and I’m glad I got to read it)

Announcements:

– We will have groups on Fusion 360: a group with the entire class, and smaller groups with the teams on different parts that we’re currently on.

– 1 set of Lego Technics is in with 2 options to build a retro or modern bike. We also have some calipers to measure the parts on the Lego motorcycles so we can rebuild those in Fusion 360.

– The small groups will still have a final presentation on the parts we work with as a final assessment.

Chapter 25:

Discussion leader: Adam

Adam: Chapter 25 has a focus on romantic & classic quality

Ben: This is where the zen in the book starts. The clash between classic & romantic is unnecessary, and it’s cathartic to get to the final focus on zen and peace of mind in motorcycle maintenance

Adam: “just sitting” & “just fixing” on page 303 exude this

Ben: it makes sense from an eastern philosophy perspective

Prof. Littman: “techne”, the root word for “technology”, originally meant “art”

Adam: “programs of a political nature are important end products of social quality that can be effective only if the underlying structure of social values is right” – page 304

Kate: representation of Buddhism has been more accurate than representation of other Eastern philosophies. Physicist’s discussion with a poet on how the poet can’t see the beauty in the molecules parallels this

Prof. Littman: The peace of mind on 3 levels: physical, mental & value quietness connects to the next chapter. Architects often add styles to object. However, adding styles to structural art – being both elegant & functional is a concept that contrast to how style adds to phoniness in the book.

Cecilia: “Understanding another person’s mind is an illusion” towards the end of the chapter. In conjunction with the Phaedrus chapter, it’s an interesting divide

Anna: “Beauty & ugliness is inherent in the way you make something, Quality is inherent”: this idea is kinda upsetting in how it’s implied in the creation of the object.

Prof. Littman: The issue of subjective perspective influence this a lot. Back and forth pistons might look bizarre, but how well they work is potentially beautiful

Hien: “serenity at the center of it all” on page 304 is confusing

Taylor: Interpret it as a deep diving into that idea, an explicit statement that the peace of mind you have on whatever machine you’re working on (in our case: motorcycle), enjoying it for the work you’re doing, removing the process from the end goal is the high quality mode of work that is the central “serenity” of it all

Prof. Littman: Eiffel Tower – Peace of mind produces right value of building a maximally efficient structure, producing the right thoughts of reducing materials & costs, building elegant structure, producing the right actions of building this structure, which create the right work for people to see a center “serenity” from how people witness the final work of the Eiffel tower

Kate: The train of thought is common in Eastern philosophy.

Rupert: If you do it, everyone can also see the quality of work and the ultimate peace of mind that you’re putting in

Kaixing: This is a very elitist way to put it. Saying this means assuming that people need to have a structurally accurate/correct scientific understanding, which isn’t accurate for everyone. The process of accurately translating ideals to reality isn’t that simple and isn’t that straightforward for everyone, and isn’t that guaranteed.

Barry: “just sitting” at the bottom of page 303 – duality of self & object isn’t dominant. When you get lost in your thoughts and isn’t dominated by separateness from what he’s working on, then he’s said to actually “care” about what he’s doing. This is very interesting.

To Kaixing: It feels like a very general process applying to life, rather than a straightforward and directly applying to a single working process, hence its seeming elitism.

Chapter 26:

Discussion leader: Jen

Motorcycle references:

Reese: The end of 312 & 313. Connecting rods & bearing

Prof. Littman: Page 325. Jammed nut & bolt & threads. Page 331 on the tightness of nut & bolts

Content:

Gumption traps & gumption loss

Jake: Personal experience with gumption is similar with many of the issues in the book. Author handled the troubleshooting really well.

Taylor: The situation itself doesn’t change much. Don’t be overwhelmed by the amount of work you have, change how difficult you perceive it to be is really fun to read & relate to.

Prof. Littman: External are “setbacks”, and internal are “hang-ups”

Setbacks – external

Hien: setbacks are motorcycle related and not more life related like the inner hangups. They are “out-of-sequence reassembly, intermittent failure and parts problems”. Not directly relatable to life, but life happens, especially with how we’re in the covid situation

Andy: A lot of stuff related to what the fluids team did.

Kaixing: A lot is still relatable to life: troubleshoot, get the tools helpful to solve them, etc.

Cecilia: General in how we can use the skills of dealing with frustration

Prof. Littman: A sense of pride in machining our own parts

Hang-ups – internal

Rupert: Not applicable to us in the “ego” part

Barry: bottom of 317: “value traps, truth traps & muscle traps”. Necessary to reevaluate things down the life as you work on things. Value traps – an example is how John has an ego and preconceived notion of how things should be done

Kate: specific example is the tin can used to fix the bike

Reese: Boredom + tiredness gumption trap. Start seeing things in the same way, it is important to take a break from it and come back with fresh eyes.

Anna: Interesting idea on “anxiety” – use motorcycle as a means to achieve your calm mental state of mind beyond working on the machine

Prof. Littman: resonates with the idea that motorcycle maintenance makes you humble, because you always encounter problems that are hard to figure out. There is a middle ground of learning to be not egotistical but also fearless in tackling problems. Not let the problem defeat you. True persistence in learning any sort of problem can be tackled.

Cecilia: Once you get down to it, fixing the motorcycle isn’t gonna lie

The idea of mu

Taylor: Yes and no isn’t sufficient. Mu is a helpful answer in life.

Jen: Using mu is looked down on, but it’s actually the answer to discussing things more broadly in the broader context and finding the better question, hence finding the better solution in life.

Hien: asking someone the trolley problem is just a trap, and the actual answer is realizing why it’s asked and what’s the purpose in discussing it.

Prof. Littman: To fix boredom, stop working on it or find curiosity. Patience is always an important thing, especially in the machine shop.

Anna: Two moments on the sad nature with his son: Yelling “WAKE” at Chris and his thought that Chris only wants to be popular to him. He also doesn’t do anything to fix it.

Chapter 27:

Discussion leader: Jen

Cecilia: Author’s relationship with Phaedrus is kinda violent in who’s the dominating figure

Kate: The shadow is the embodiment of himself comes up again

Rupert: The big reveal is that Robert is the shadow, but we knew all along, so he’s pretty slow in learning about himself.

Taylor: The animosity towards Phaedrus isn’t apparent till now, so it was exciting to see.

 

Discussion on Fusion360:

Daphne was inspired to make a LEGO brick from Fusion360. Used the sketch & extrusion tool to create the rectangular block, then the circular knobs.

Everyone should try to draw these LEGO bricks if possible.