EVERYONE’S A PHILOSOPHER

When I was in college, I studied philosophy. Not because I had to take philosophy, but because I was interested in philosophy. When I finished my first class, I applied for special permission to take a senior-level advanced course in ancient philosophy, because the instructor of that course was a particularly gifted and extraordinary teacher. My final thesis revolved around Plato and “The Forms”. I was 19.

I tell you this because one of the most brilliant scholars and respected teachers I’ve ever known told me this when I said I wanted to open my own Academy and become a Famous Philosopher.

“Linda,” he said, “Everyone’s a Philosopher.”.

Ouch.

This story makes me smile; first, because it reminds me that I was once younger and sillier than I am now, and secondly, it has some applicability because of the latest stuff floating around that says great testers have to study philosophy. I can’t help thinking that some folks will be totally let down to find out that I, The Demon Seed, have studied philosophy, particularly when I’ve said several times that I’m not particularly philosophical.

And I’m not. I don’t have a great deal of time available to sit around thinking great thoughts or contemplating my state of being.

That doesn’t mean I don’t recognize or respect the great thoughts of others; I do. But if it doesn’t directly impact the health and well-being of my staff and the future success of those things that fall into the realm of my responsibility, I’d just as soon zone out and watch back-to-back episodes of “Hole in the Wall”. I don’t get much time to just do something stupid and fun.

I put arguing the nature of being right up there with discussing, for over 4 hours, the difference between “validation” and “verification”. The fact that people use the terms “QA” and “QC” interchangeably doesn’t bother me. I stopped focusing on terminology and worked on understanding meaning instead a long time ago. I just sat back and watched several people I respect argue (for DAYS) about a sub-title on a book. Books have to be marketable; you’d think the publishers would have a tad more experience at it than we do, but (Good God, y’all!) there are some people in our field like terriers with a bone. They have to comment on/argue about freaking EVERYTHING and then will not let it go. They must get in the last word. They never put it to rest. It’s a pain in the behind. I threw in one opinion and that was pretty much it for me; I bagged out. That’s because I really didn’t care enough about the outcome to discuss it any further.

I have a different type of ego than some people do. It doesn’t bother me that there are people out there in the world smarter than I am. Nor do I feel obliged to be interested in and/or have an opinion on something someone else is passionate about. I have my own interests. But I acknowledge and respect both the intelligence and the passion of others. At the same time, I believe that knowledge, while interesting in and of itself, is meaningless to the masses of people that make up our world without some practical application that most people can understand and use.

It’s also part of my nature to question things, regardless of how much more informed or intelligent the source of those things might be. For example, I used to drive my mathematics teachers crazy. I wanted to know how X theorems and formulae were APPLIED. What branches of science or engineering used them and how? Most of the time, they had no idea as to how they were applied. And here’s the key, at least with me. If there was no way to apply it, I felt there was no reason to learn it, and I didn’t. I was the original whiz-kid when it came to formulae for virtually any type of science. But give me some meaningless formula with 23 variables that always added up to zero for no apparent reason, and I stubbornly refused to memorize it. It’s not because I couldn’t. It’s because I thought it was “stupid”. I went on to something more interesting that made sense to me. When I look back on it, and the hassles my parents had with my education, I’m surprised I wasn’t drowned at birth.

My parents strongly believed that those that make the most contributions to the world and their chosen field are those that benefit normal, everyday people. No doubt this belief continues to influence me today. And by the way, if you live in an area prone to forest fires and your house and shingles are treated with a coating that does not burn, you can thank my Dad. It doesn’t keep the wood from exploding from the heat, but… Or do you know those bubble lights you see at Christmas time? He developed those too...

But I digress.

So regardless of how brilliant a given idea or concept might be, if it (or the person offering the ideas) can provide no application for the knowledge, or if their body of work overall contains conflicting messages or appears to have holes, I question it. I may point it out. And if it continues to make no sense to me or what I regard as reality, I refuse to memorize, parrot, support, or learn it.

I’m not saying this is the “right” way to be. It probably isn’t. It’s just the way I am.

Thus, ideas in the field have to have some applicability I understand and can relate to and that can benefit the majority of practitioners in the field.

So I’m slowly winding back to the topic (I can hear the sighs of relief).

Everyone has their own realities and their own philosophies. What we really don’t necessarily understand is the reality and philosophy of others. I’m not sold on the idea that a “great” tester has to study the philosophy of a long-dead person who also believed the heavenly bodies revolved around the earth in crystals in order to test a web site. I think it highly unlikely a majority of our field is going to go out and start studying philosophy and therefore I think the idea overall is a bunch of foofy nonsense. But while I’m not buying the “great testers must study philosophy” um….stuff…., I think it might be a good idea to study and have some understanding of each other.

I’m also of the belief that there is a highly-placed group of Deep Thinkers in our field that are skilled in, and enjoy the company of others skilled in, dialectics.

Go for it, gentlemen…

Dialectics come in several forms, but the most common is a form of discussion or professional argument that is a) oral, b) between equals or people who have some common understanding, c) on a subject that one can address “from the heart” (with some passion), and d) focuses on finding holes or discrepancies in another’s discussions in order to point them out and thus help both participants move more towards (well, Plato would say “perfection”) some sort of common truth.

Dialectics were a specialty of Plato’s and formed the basis for many of the sciences and professions we see today. You can certainly see *some* sort of corollary with testing, as the art involved finding discrepancies and pointing them out. Think about what you do every day as part of your job. Isn’t that pretty much finding holes or discrepancies in something and pointing it out in order to move software towards a more perfect state?

Perhaps you’ll never read The Fragments of Heraclitus. Don’t let someone make you feel inferior or tell you you’ll never be a “great” tester. Chances are good you’ve applied dialectics in a very practical way to a very practical job.

And after all…

Everyone is a Philosopher.