A Holistic Education for the 21st Century Engineer Based on Wisdom and Multiplexity

Abstract

In a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) 21st-century world, there is a great need for drawing upon capacity for holistic thinking and wisdom. We need to leverage multiple transdisciplinary thinking that allows a multiplexity of ways of thinking and knowing to deal with multi-layered complex reality. Our society is rife with elusive 'wicked problems' that defy narrow technological solutions emerging from disciplinary siloed thinking. A narrow education in such times is not only sub-optimal but also dangerous. With the advancement in artificial intelligence, we now have too advanced a technology to be able to survive without wisdom. We require a broad range of experiences and models to study the same problem and the wisdom to choose and combine different models in appropriate ways. We need not only mathematics, engineering, and sciences for engineers but also an exposure to the important ideas in philosophy, psychology, history, economics, sustainability, and significant insights about subjects of enduring interest to human beings. 2022 The authors and IOS Press.