I realized much later that being born to a mechanical engineer father was quite an advantageous start in life. My father, Durmuş Çalışkan, would constantly share his dream with us: to make me a mechanical engineer, my middle brother a master assembler, and my youngest brother a business manager. (For an industrialist, the three most vital issues are project, manufacturing, and operation, to which marketing must also be added.) In fact, by inventing ZetaCAD, we realized my father's dream. I designed the entire product architecture and mechanisms of ZetaCAD, while my brother handled the manufacturing and assembly. I didn't just design it; I also managed its operations and marketing.

My childhood toys were a logarithmic ruler, graph paper, tracing paper, rapidograph pens, a scientific calculator, and the Rainbow Encyclopedia series, which was my favorite. My mother tells me that when I was 3 or 4 years old, I would pick it up and pretend to read it, mumbling strange sounds. I seem to remember secretly tearing out the pages I liked, crawling under the sofa, and carrying them in my pocket. I wore out the encyclopedia at a very young age, and I read the remaining intact parts in elementary school. Some volumes of the encyclopedia are still scattered around. I must have read each volume at least 10 times. My favorites in this series, which remind me of my childhood, were the volumes on Countries and People, Mythology and Legends, Plants and Animals, and History of Science.

I was around 5 or 6 years old. During a Hıdırellez celebration, the whole neighborhood was having a picnic in an area called Çamlık, a little way from our neighborhood. I asked my mom for permission and joined them, going to Çamlık. While playing, our ball rolled down a slope a little way ahead. When I went to retrieve it, I noticed a substance that covered the ground, slightly viscous and soft. It was a substance with a distinct smell. I picked up my ball and returned to the game. I thought about this mysterious substance I had seen throughout the night. Since it had a slightly warm texture, it could have been lava. This substance, which stuck in my mind, was dark gray in places and had an interesting smell. The next day, I decided to go to Çamlık alone. After breakfast, I went to that area without telling anyone. The area was still covered with that substance. I examined it closely and checked its temperature. All sorts of thoughts were running through my head. Could it be coming from a well underground? Since it was sticky, I used a branch from the surrounding area to collect some of the material and put it in the matchbox I had brought with me (at that time, matchboxes were the easiest thing to find). I was excited, thinking it might be lava residue or oil. When I eagerly showed my father the material, I had brought home thinking it was lava, he scolded me a little and told me it was a chemical substance, so I immediately threw it away. It was probably waste from one of the industrial factories around the Golden Horn.

Every time I went to my father's workshop, I was curious about how welding was done. I would stare at the light emitted by the welding torch for a long time with my bare eyes, and many times my eyes would hurt when I returned home. Despite the warnings from the masters, I would continue watching. I wouldn't say my eyes hurt so I could keep watching, but then I couldn't sleep for two nights. It was a wonderful childhood where I never stopped observing, focusing on things that intrigued me, researching them, and never giving up. Starting from middle school until I started my own business, I regularly visited my father's workshop every summer vacation. This place was such a school for me that I also gained experience in manufacturing, assembly, engineering, and business at various levels here.

My Elementary School Years

Fourth grade was when I first encountered experiments. Since there was no experiment cabinet in the classroom, the whole school used the small cabinet in the teachers' room. I would boldly enter the teachers' room, take concave mirrors and pipettes from the experiment cabinet in that room filled with cigarette smoke and laughter, and conduct experiments alone in the garden during class time with our teacher's permission. I also made an experiment cabinet for my own class out of wood from the attic, painted it nicely with oil paint, and carried it to school with the help of my friends from the neighborhood. I placed the cabinet at the back of our group's row. I was going to put the experiment materials I brought from home inside. In the first class, as soon as the teacher entered the classroom and noticed the strong paint smell, my friends showed him the cabinet. My teacher congratulated me and allowed the cabinet to stay in the classroom for only a short time. Since my mom didn't want to make room for the cabinet in the house, I turned a section of my dad's bookcase into an experiment cabinet and wrote "Do Not Touch" on it with paper letters. This was my dream virtual laboratory. I named it the Aydoğdu Laboratory. I thought of my laboratory as a project. I wanted to write down the working principles and goals of the Aydoğdu Science Laboratory, but I couldn't find a typewriter anywhere. On my father's advice, I visited the Söğüt Marble factory, where he had a client, and had the secretary type it up. I took it to my elementary school teacher. I received congratulations from both the secretary and my teacher. The word "project", which had long been part of my life due to my father's crane projects and which I initially had trouble pronouncing, was now my way of working. I walked 2-3 km to buy various batteries, sockets, and electrical cables for my experiment cabinet. I would conduct the experiments from next year’s science textbook in our garden during the summer and call my mother to the balcony to watch. At one point, I started carrying a spirit burner in my pocket. That is, until one day the lid opened and it spilled onto my pants. After my mother noticed, I had to leave it in my cabinet. I tried to produce a new super synthetic material by combining all the liquids. Egg white and laundry detergent are among the first that come to mind. I remember it like yesterday that after each addition, I measured its conductivity with a simple electrical circuit. Imaginary devices that would split atoms, a submarine, and a traffic light powered by a clockwork mechanism were among the main projects I developed and tried to put into practice in my laboratory, under my father's guidance. I later taught the project of making a traffic light using a clockwork mechanism to all my own children while they were in elementary school, and they won awards for their projects.

One day, when I told my father about Torricelli's experiment and atmospheric pressure, he said, "A Muslim-Turkish scholar made that discovery." Excited, I shared this information with my teacher at school the next day, but I didn't get any response. When I brought up the subject again with my father that evening, this time he said, "Muslims also discovered zero." The subject was becoming increasingly interesting. The role of Muslim-Turkish scientists in history was really getting into my head. Had they really made such significant contributions?

My father was a true geometer (the word muhendis-engineer is also derived from hendese-geometry in Turkish). In elementary school, we solved all math problems geometrically. This included problems that seemed purely arithmetic, such as GCD and LCM. Graph paper was an indispensable work companion. My father's hand-drawn sketches and the resulting objects in these squares had a tremendous effect on my imagination. Although it wasn't in the curriculum, I learned to take square roots geometrically. At the end of every arithmetic problem, my father would start again by saying, "Okay, let's solve this geometrically." He even taught trigonometry in elementary school. Since we had a scientific calculator at home, he explained what sine and cosine meant with drawings in response to my questions. As he said, "It's very easy, I'll draw it so you can see," everything suddenly became easy. He was very skilled at reducing very complex issues to elementary school level. My 4th and 5th grade years were spent with experimental and geometric discoveries. Geometry expands a person's imagination while also disciplining them and putting them in order. Even now, when I'm driving, I imagine the view of someone coming from the opposite lane; it's a mental obsession that pops into my head from time to time. There are almost no relatives who didn't take math lessons from my father.

My first encounter with cinema and TV, which few people now refer to as the silver screen or magic box, dates back to the end of my elementary school years. Long before "Star Wars," I used to watch science fiction series such as "The Man from Atlantis," "The 25th Century," "The Invisible Man," and "Journey Through Time" at my friends' houses because we didn't have a TV at home. The movie "E.T." that I watched at the cinema with my cousin was also one of the science fiction films I watched in elementary school. The first movie I watched at the cinema was "The Message" Moreover, since my father recorded the soundtrack of this movie on a cassette tape while watching it at the cinema, I had the opportunity to listen to this recording many times; the music was very impressive. The television came to our house when I was in the third grade of middle school. My father brought it into the house as late as possible so it wouldn't affect our studies. He watched the news at the coffee shop every evening (he learned in the last days of his life that his lungs had suffered a lot of damage from the smoke, even though he didn't smoke), and I watched these series at the neighbors'.

Based on information I got from my father, I went to Şişhane Bankalar Street during my fifth-grade summer vacation to see a computer. Like the hungry children looking at the doner kebab in Kemalettin Tuğcu's books, I was looking at the computer through the window of a store I found. PCs were just beginning to become widespread around the world. The year was 1984. I was very excited to get my hands on this mysterious box that counted information as its name in Turkish is “bilgi-sayar”. At that time, the words "computer" and "game" did not go together in my mind.

Fazilet College Years

We were a very lucky generation. In those years, middle school started at age 11 with a preparatory class and included seven years of intensive foreign language education. However, the lack of a science class in the preparatory class was a problem for me. When science classes began in 7th and 8th grade, my performance in class earned me the key to the lab from my teacher. During lunch break, while everyone else was playing, I would sneak into the lab and conduct experiments, examining plants I found around me and microscopic organisms in water under the microscope.

On Friday evenings, I watched a science program called "Contact." Back then, there were almost no science programs for children and young people. One day, my father sent me to a distant newsstand to buy Milliyet Çocuk, a children’s magazine. From that day on, we eagerly awaited every issue of this magazine, which I followed for a very long time. I can say it was more effective than radio or TV. I read all the comic books meticulously, especially following science and technology topics from the books this magazine gave away. Space and Inventions are some books I remember. With what I learned from these books, I attempted to make a laser beam. Milliyet Çocuk magazine made a very important contribution to the development of my childhood mind.

I remember asking my father in middle school how he calculated the cross-section of the crane he built. He explained integral calculus and the moment of inertia (knowing I wouldn't understand, but just to spark my curiosity about the subject and increase my math and physics culture). The famous German engineering handbook Tabellenbuch, which contains standards and calculations, became the source of my engineering inspiration in my youth.

My Father's Education System: The Scanning Method

My father's education system was the scanning method. I would like to elaborate on this a little. After school closed, following a two-week break, he would create an eight-week lesson plan for the summer, covering the period from July 1 to August 31. The first four weeks were spent reviewing the previous year's math and science books, solving all the problems again. The second four weeks were spent reviewing the topics for the coming year, again using the scanning method, solving all the problems, and then we would start school like that. My daily summer vacation study schedule was from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. and from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. In the evenings, we would solve the problems together I couldn't solve. Thanks to this systematic approach, math and science lessons became lifelong learning experiences. I never had to memorize anything; I gained the ability to grasp the meaning of these subjects in space using the method my father taught me.

My father never fell into inconsistency with his scientific perspective. He would break down ideas of one person he found wrong into suggestions and refute them one by one to the other person himself. Not a single unnecessary word ever came out of his mouth. He loved quality humor and wit, joking around with my mother, but he disliked empty chatter. Seriousness and order (he used these words himself) were his philosophy of life, and he maintained a very distant relationship with those outside his immediate family. His advanced maturity, intellectual richness, modernist worldview, meticulous and aesthetic work—his penmanship, his magnificent writing style—and his idealism deeply influenced my life.

Returning to Fazilet College, we were receiving a truly high-level education there. The classical courses and classical exams, which were not indexed to university entrance exams and were mainly based on English books, provided a meaningful educational formation. Even in our senior year of high school, when we were preparing for university, the school did not compromise on English education, which was not part of the exam. One thing I remember is that the last sentence of George Orwell's Animal Farm, "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others," was analyzed extensively in class. I still remember the discussions. My favorite subject at Fazilet College was Biology. Although it was not part of the curriculum, our teacher and I operated on a frog and examined its organs. We also watched a video of open-heart surgery in the laboratory. Idealistic institution, idealistic teachers, idealistic curriculum... Sugar, flour, oil...

Not only the classes, but the cultural activities were also very lively and colorful. English-Turkish wall newspapers, magazines, fanzines, weekly and termly theater performances—I was also part of the school theater team for a term—and weekly conferences created a very rich world of cultural activities. When I was in middle school, Nevzat Kaya, the director of the Süleymaniye Library (at that time he was the assistant director, or perhaps even an expert), came to a Wednesday conference. I listened with amazement to his slide presentation. He showed the thousand-year-old manuscripts at Süleymaniye and talked about many scientists and scholars in various fields, from Ibn Sina to Jazari. Due to my curiosity about technology and mechanical engineering, Al-Jazari's mechanical book, written centuries ago, greatly intrigued me. Al-Jazari, an engineer who served the Artuklu Principality of Mardin in the 1200s, 300 years before Da Vinci, wrote a book called Kitab al-Hiyal, which reflected the most advanced technology of his time and influenced Western mechanical science in many ways. At the end of the lecture, Nevzat Bey invited us to the library. Since I was boarding, I eagerly awaited the weekend. On Saturday morning, I rushed to the library (apparently, I was the only one who went). Nevzat Bey welcomed me very warmly. Although he showed me many manuscripts, Jazari’s engineering work Kitab'ül Hiyel, which I was very curious about, was not in the library at that time (I think it had been transferred to another library for preservation purposes). He explained the contents and impact of this book to me at length. I was practically mesmerized in the library. He gave me a book written about Ruşen Eşref Ünaydın as a gift and recommended that I read Ali Fuat Başgil's Gençlerle Başbaşa (Alone with Young People). Although this book was small in size, it had a great impact on me. I reread this book every six months. It was also during these years that I encountered the book titled Muslim Pioneers of Science. My curiosity about the history of science accelerated with my visits to the library, and indeed, it turned into an indescribable passion during my university years.

One of the most important events of my middle school years was going to machine fairs with my father. At that time, in the 1980s, Turkish industry was in its infancy, so 90% of the companies were foreign, and I would act as an English translator for my father when necessary. From an early age, I found myself in a rich world of technology. At these fairs, automation systems, spoon and fork cleaning with ultrasonic wave, all kinds of devices, and countless other things I couldn't even imagine with my child's mind were on display every year at the Hilton Exhibition Hall.

I remember preparing a comprehensive article on Environmental Pollution in my 8th grade Science class. I wrote a similar, longer article in my freshman year of high school on the Theory of Evolution. Although it wasn't part of the curriculum, I presented the article I had prepared using reference books I got from my teacher to the class. Since all the sources I had rejected evolution, I still keep this anti-evolution work, naturally. (Who could have known that years later I would argue that Islam fundamentally has no problem with evolution!)

When I was in my last year of middle school, computer classes had started in the lower grades. Since our class was the only one, we couldn't take software classes. In my first year of high school, we were going to start hands-on physics classes using computers in the computer lab. My dad's workplace had bought a computer (it must have been an NCR 386). I learned DOS commands like CLS from the computer teacher in the lower grades and tried them out on the weekend. Since I didn't know how to use it, the teacher's words, "First, you'll insert the DOS floppy disk (I understood it as 'boss'), then you'll run the program disk," are still in my mind. I remember how excited my siblings and I were when I typed the CLS command on the screen and managed to clear the entire screen. Later, I improved my software knowledge using a small handheld computer belonging to a friend from a lower grade. When my father left the partnership, the computer remained with him at my insistence and came to our house. This allowed me to start trying out the short software pieces in BASIC at the back of the Science and Technology magazine on our own computer. The DBase elective course I took at ITU, along with courses like FORTRAN, strengthened my software experience and algorithmic reasoning. Additionally, while solving dynamic and thermodynamic problems in advanced engineering programs like ADAMS and ANSYS, we also solved some problems programmatically in the Finite Element Method course.

Let's return to Fazilet. At the suggestion of our English teacher, our class had subscribed to Newsweek magazine. It was a weekly magazine that mostly covered social and political events. I had also subscribed to this magazine for my own home. IranGate, the Challenger disaster (the cover featured the moment of the Challenger's explosion), the collapse of the USSR, the fall of the Berlin Wall, Thatcherism, Glasnost and Perestroika, the reunification of the two Germanys, and the Iraq War (I still remember the magazine's graphics about Iraq's secret hangars for MIG aircraft and Scud missiles). I never missed the interviews with politicians, artists, and businesspeople on the back page. Also, the annual summary issue at the beginning of each year, recounting the events of the previous year, was fantastic. I also followed science and technology news here and in the Science and Technology magazine. My father's library included the Tercüman newspaper's 1001 Classics series, the conservative classics of the era, a two-volume World History Encyclopedia, the Encyclopedia of Life, the five-year development plans of the 1970s, books and catalogs of machinery and equipment, and most importantly, the Rainbow Encyclopedia series. As for newspapers, my father regularly brought home the Milliyet newspaper every day. Throughout high school, I had the opportunity to read most of the books in this library. One book I remember was Alexis Carrel's Man, the Unknown.

Some of my high school teachers advised me to choose social sciences because of my interest in history, society, and politics. One teacher even said that engineers have to think with a ruler. I remember saying, "If you know how to bend that ruler, there's no problem, teacher!" One of my father's statements that has never left my mind is, "Those who study engineering may one day return to social sciences, but social scientists do not have that opportunity." Following my father's advice, after graduating from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at ITU, I pursued academic studies in the fields of Philosophy of Science, International Relations, and Artificial Intelligence. I am grateful to my father and all my teachers, especially those at Fazilet College and ITU, who nurtured me.

The "Pioneers of Science" Exhibition and Cezeri Museum at ITU

The student clubs active at ITU caught my attention during my very first year. On my first day at the university, with the goal of organizing social activities focused on the history of science in mind, I shared my idea and purpose of starting a new club with my father. It should be a club that addresses cultural and social issues, bringing a fresh perspective to ITU. After consulting with my father, we decided, at his suggestion, to name the club the "Yunus Emre Techno-Culture Club." The next day, I went to the administrative structure to which the clubs were affiliated—it must have been the Culture and Arts Association—and met with the director. He gave me a negative opinion and said we should join one of the existing clubs. To breathe new life into club activities at ITU, I started attending the meetings of the Boğaziçi University History Club with the help of a friend. After a while, we established the "Communication Group" with friends from the faculty as part of a club. As the second activity of this Communication Group, we organized the "Pioneers of Science Exhibition" in 1994. Our first activity was the Bosnia Solidarity photo exhibition we opened in 1992 to collect aid for Bosnia.

From the very first day I entered university, I was aware that explaining the true place of Muslims and Turks in science and technology at the university would be a very important and unique contribution. After completing the club's infrastructure work, I asked for help from our chemistry teacher, Zekeriya Hayır, from Fazilet College. I knew he had a master's degree in the History of Science. On the phone, he told me that the leading authority on these matters was İhsan Fazlıoğlu, a doctoral student and academic in the Philosophy Department at Istanbul University. I asked him to arrange an appointment for me. My brother and I went to the appointment a few days later. Unfortunately, we couldn't find the professor at home that evening. The next day, we learned from Zekeriya Bey that his friend Cevat İzgi had passed away. With a second appointment, we finally met our professor (Professor İhsan later told me that he was impressed by my persistence in getting the appointment and that it was the first time he had encountered such a thing). His wife, Mrs. Şükran, was in Jordan for her master's degree. We embarked on an exciting adventure with our professor that lasted until late at night. Every week, my brother and I would visit the professor at his home, drink his tea, and talk about the History of Science and Philosophy. The fact that two ITU engineering candidates were interested in these topics caught the professor's attention. It was only in the fourth or fifth week, when he learned our last names, that he realized we were brothers. I never treated my brother like a younger sibling; I always saw him as a project partner and companion for everything I had in mind.

The professor invited us to his classes at the Science and Art Foundation (BİSAV), and that's how our long association with him began. Under the guidance of Professor İhsan, we started working hard on the Pioneers of Science Exhibition we were going to hold at the ITU Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. We formed a working group, involving a few friends from the faculty. In April 1995, we held the "Pioneers of Science Exhibition," which attracted widespread attention throughout Turkey and received extensive media coverage. Many people came to our exhibition, both university professors and students, as well as people from outside the campus. The exhibition attracted so much interest that even housewives were among the visitors, as we had put up posters on IETT buses. To support the exhibition, I visited Kazım Çeçen from Environmental Engineering and Celal Şengör from Geology Engineering in their offices and interviewed them. I had learned that these two professors were conducting research on the history of science at ITU. Professor Kazım mentioned that they had built one of Jazari's clocks at ITU, but it didn't work. Even on that day, I had a strong belief that Jazari's devices would one day be made. Celal Şengör also explained how humans evolved in Africa on the huge physical world map in his office. The exhibition was later presented to the education world for many years in many middle schools and high schools with the same concept and the same materials. During this work, I had the opportunity to examine Jazari's Kitab'ül Hiyel more closely. I had a facsimile edition of the book published by the Ministry of Culture and Donald Hill's English translation. When my father saw Kitab'ül Hiyel, he showed much more interest than I had expected. His initial reaction was that these devices would not work because they required precise calculations, and he said he would prove this by examining the snake mechanisms of the Elephant Water Clock over the weekend. However, when he realized that the mechanisms worked on delicate balances, he shared this information with me in amazement, and the first step of the 15-year Jazari project was officially taken that day. With the Turkish translation done by Professor Ihsan and his wife, Mrs. Sukran, and my father's mechanical explanations, the book was published in 2015 as two volumes under the title Jazari's Extraordinary Machines. While my father was preparing the mechanical commentary for the book, he was also simultaneously working on the assembly projects for the devices, so we reached the point where we could produce the machines at. Before my father passed away in 2018, we accelerated small-scale production and established the Istanbul Jazari Museum in 2019. The museum attracted tremendous interest from the entire art and academic world. Tens of thousands of people visited the museum, and it was a great source of inspiration, especially for young children. The slogan I chose for the museum, "Look at History, Write the Future," was very realistic. Indeed, after touring the museum, one child wrote in the guestbook that she now believed she would become an astronaut. For me, that was a moment when I felt our efforts had paid off. Furthermore, encountering many people who toured the museum repeatedly for 4-5 hours, the tears shed by an elderly man, showed me how a dream I had as a middle school student turned into a 30-year journey and produced such meaningful results. So, if you dream beautiful dreams and are sincerely passionate about them, one day they will come true!

Academic Studies in the Social Sciences and BİSAV

I took a break from my master's degree in Mechanical Engineering at ITU and started a master's degree in Political History and International Relations at Marmara University. My curiosity about International Relations stemmed from Ahmet Davutoğlu's lectures at the Science and Art Foundation (BİSAV). While I was interested in philosophy and science on one hand, the history of political thought also fascinated me. Thanks to the knowledge I gained from the two-year Indian Civilization Workshop at BİSAV, I wrote my master's thesis titled "The Formation of the State of Pakistan" under the supervision of Professor Davutoğlu. When he was dismissed from the university on February 28, I completed my unfinished thesis with Nadir Devlet. The "Indian Civilization" workshop was an event far above Turkish standards. We had also conducted a very long-term workshop similar to this one in the "Toynbee: A Study of History" reading group. While writing my master's thesis, I realized that my theoretical side was weak, so I enrolled in the philosophy of science for my doctorate. The history and philosophy of science had been on my mind for a long time, raising profound questions. I was already somewhat familiar with these topics from the classes I took with Professor İhsan at the Science and Art Foundation, the two-year Philosophy of Nature Workshop, and the Kant Reading Workshop. The Science and Art Foundation was a very lively intellectual environment. It was a magnificent school where I had the opportunity to listen to the most important intellectuals of the Western and Islamic worlds, from Cornell Flescher to Richard Falk, Wallerstein, Seyyid Hüseyin Nasr, the Iranian philosopher Abdülkerim Suruş, Halil İnalcık, and Kemal Karpat. Here, you may find yourself reading the cosmological arguments in the introduction to Ali Kuşçu's book on astronomy, Akçura's Üç Tarz-ı Siyaset, Leo Strauss's Jerusalem conference paper "What is Political Philosophy," Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, Newton's Principia Mathematica, or the classic Introduction to Logic book, Isaguci. The Foundation was a broad-spectrum, interdisciplinary school spanning sociology, history, political philosophy, economic history, philosophy of science, and even art history. It was an intellectually stimulating home where not only books but also masterpieces of cinema were watched and discussed. I don't think there is another example like the Foundation anywhere else in the world.

One of the most fundamental questions in our philosophy of nature studies at BİSAV since 2002 has been: "Why did a mathematical and experimental understanding of science not develop or remain limited in Islamic thought, or specifically in kalam?" This question can also be phrased in reverse: "Why did the Scientific Revolution take place in the West, or is that really the case?" Why did the West advance while its rivals remained stagnant, or what exactly is the problem? In the context of finding answers to our questions, the Philosophy of Nature Workshop, where we studied Western science, provided me with an advanced command of the literature. In this workshop, which I personally coordinated, a small group of friends and I read the fundamental texts of natural philosophy from primary sources under the guidance of Professor İhsan and discussed them weekly in the workshop. After two years of work, we organized a Natural Philosophy Symposium, where each of us had the opportunity to present topics we were interested in. The Science and Art Foundation had a fundamental philosophy of free thought and an environment free from ostentation and artificiality, prioritizing knowledge above all else. Most of the friends I chose for this workshop went on to pursue academic studies. I owe my ability to work on an original topic for my doctorate to the foundation I gained from this workshop. Thanks to the Science and Art Foundation, even though I was an engineer, I was introduced to the social sciences at the highest level and became involved in the subject. Here, I gained knowledge in many areas, primarily history, philosophy, political science, and economic history. As these are the subject of a separate article, I will not elaborate here. Furthermore, when my engineering education met the concepts of natural philosophy, my notion of engineering gained different depths. Solution-oriented engineering rationality was reinforced with critical thinking skills in addition to conceptual and flexible thinking abilities. Indeed, the invention of ZetaCAD is based on such a background.

The knowledge I gained from natural philosophy taught me to think in the following cycle and to conduct mental experiments:

In order to say anything about any natural or social phenomenon, we must run this process and keep it constantly active in our minds. We must not forget that the factual reality we obtain necessarily has quantum entanglement and cannot be evaluated independently of the environment in which it developed and the elements with which it is entangled. While following this mental experiment method, we are probably realizing and applying in our minds Jazari's aphorism: "Any knowledge that has not been applied hangs somewhere between right and wrong."

My Dream Invention: ZetaCAD

I started my own business immediately after graduating from college. In 2004, my brother and I, through our joint company Tekhnelogos Software, managed to bring my groundbreaking invention in plumbing engineering, ZetaCAD, to the attention of the engineering sector throughout the country. Although my brother responded negatively when I first presented the ZetaCAD project to him, saying, "You won't even get a menu out of this, let's not do it!", I started the project by using my persistent personality and my influence as the older brother. My brother wasn't the only one skeptical about the project; industry stakeholders also didn't believe such a thing was possible. The only exception was Burhan Özcan, the Plant Manager at İGDAŞ. Mr. Burhan was also a friend from ITU Mechanical Engineering and fully supported our project with his broad vision. Unfortunately, the incompetent managers who came after him fired us from İGDAŞ before we could even start the project. At that time, wall movements, plumbing tools, which were not found in any CAD software in the world, were constantly swirling around in my mind like adolescent dreams, with great momentum, day and night. The functions, drawing mechanisms, tools, and interface designs were brought to life through my completely original approach. Thanks to my perfectionist philosophy, we had created a dynamic engineering marvel that was simplified enough for even housewives to use. The project approval processes, which mechanical engineers feared would take away their jobs, had become fully digitalized and gained tremendous speed. Furthermore, at a time when the concept of specification control did not yet exist in the world, we pioneered this innovation. Revit, which came out long after us, also used our slogan, "Design, Calculate, Control." Algorithmic specification checks performed by computers enabled safe and efficient design. ZetaCAD continues its journey with the support of Artificial Intelligence, embracing new technologies. Twenty years later, when I put pressure on the new product manager to develop it further, he responded, "Mr. Selami, you designed ZetaCAD so perfectly that we find it very difficult to add anything to it."

One of the key factors that allowed me to design ZetaCAD so uniquely was that I had no familiarity with the CAD software available at the time. When we complained to our professor Mahir, who taught our technical drawing class in the first year of Mechanical Engineering at ITU, saying, "A program called AutoCAD has come out, and now drawing projects has become very easy. You are making it very difficult for us," he said, "The computer doesn't do anything; it reflects your drawing skills onto the machine. Those who don't know how to draw by hand cannot be successful on the computer either." AutoCAD was not taught at the faculty, and since it was not widespread at the time, I had postponed learning AutoCAD. However, I would only realize much later that my mind not being conditioned by any CAD program was an advantage. ZetaCAD made a huge impact on the natural gas sector with its unique drawing techniques and organization, which overturned all conventions.

The project, along with its calculations, design, and control system, gradually perfected and spread. After 20 years, it is now used in thousands of engineering firms in 78 cities, and the total number of approved projects exceeds 12 million. Furthermore, since paper printing has been completely eliminated, hundreds of thousands of trees have been saved from being cut down, and tremendous labor productivity has been achieved. I now fondly remember the three times I fainted and was taken to the hospital during the development of ZetaCAD. I also designed and patented the Telecontrol System, which provides remote plumbing control capabilities that revolutionized the plumbing engineering industry. One day, I would like to write about how I conceived these revolutionary technological systems, what challenges I faced, and how I dealt with bureaucracy. Throughout my life, I have created one technologically original project. Hopefully, our children will create three projects, and their children will create nine.

Two Doctorates: The Scientific Revolution and Artificial Intelligence-World Order

Due to the intensity of my professional life, my doctoral studies took a very long time. Eventually, I was able to focus on my work abroad and defended my thesis on the history of philosophy and science in 2013. I then published my book titled Homo Faber and Homo Economicus in the Scientific Revolution. I had been searching for answers to the questions that had preoccupied my mind throughout my life: "Why did experimental science not fully develop in our world? Where were our shortcomings?" According to the conclusion of my thesis, the reason experimental science did not develop sufficiently in the Islamic world was the absence of Homo economicus. In all classical civilizations, the practical-mechanical sciences seen among the lower classes gained prominence in the Western world thanks to Homo economicus. However, in the Islamic world, mechanical sciences did not even make it into the madrasa curriculum, and since a great genius like Jazari was not considered a scholar, no historical records were kept about him, not even in biographical books. In other words, the most significant problem in the Islamic world was the absence of a Western-style economic mindset, which was a major factor in social structure and organization and triggered the scientific revolution, and the acceptance of practical knowledge from the lower classes. The situation was the same in all classical civilizations. There are other reasons, of course, which I discuss in detail in my book.

In 2024, I completed my second doctorate at Istanbul Medeniyet University's Department of International Relations with a thesis titled "Artificial Intelligence and the Possibility of a Global Noopolitical Order." I had the opportunity to examine the contributions of Artificial Intelligence to politics and its potential in establishing order. I experience the entanglement of social sciences, natural philosophy-science, and engineering in a chimera structure. It was quite exciting to synthesize International Relations, World Order, Natural Philosophy-Science, Quantum Entanglement, Noosphere, Big Data, and Artificial Intelligence like a chemist. The most original aspect of the thesis is the Artificial Intelligence decision-support system NOOPOLITICUS platform, which will contribute to the global order. I hope that one day I will be able to realize it. In this thesis, which emerged at the intersection of International Relations, technology, and philosophy, Artificial Intelligence was an inevitable conclusion for me.

I would also like to mention Turgut Cansever as the person who had the greatest influence on me. I met him at the 1996 Habitat Conference. His philosophy of life and understanding of cities was the kind that could influence a person's perspective on everything. After his lecture at BİSAV on a snowy day in Istanbul, I had the opportunity to have a sincere conversation with him during our long car ride. Later, although we really wanted to work with him on the public housing project my father and I developed in Golden Horn, we were unable to implement his humanistic system due to visionless mayors. Even though we didn't work together much, he is the person I am most pleased to have known in this world, and my greatest wish is to one day find the opportunity to apply his urban philosophy and Turkish architecture.

Tekhne Makre!

Humanity's environmental and biological journey on Earth manifests as "adaptation" and "innovation." Adaptation references nature, or physis, while innovation references the technological context, or tekhne. Technology is derived from the word tekhne. Used in ancient Greece to mean craft or technique, tekhne, in its broadest sense, means "human creation" and corresponds to the word craft (zanaat) in Turkish language. The word industry (sanayi) also comes from this. However, tekhne was defined in ancient Greece as "illiberal arts," or artes serviles (the art of slaves). Free people did not consider tekhne suitable for themselves, so they were only interested in mostly theoretical subjects such as mathematics, literature, astronomy, and music (artes liberales – the arts of free people). This approach was decisive throughout the classical world, including ours, until the end of the Middle Ages.

The word muhendis (engineer) comes from the word hendese and means someone who knows and uses geometry. The word engineer, which appeared in Latin languages in the 17th century, was translated into Turkish in this way. In other words, there is no pre-modern use of the concept of engineer. However, we encounter the "tool-making human," or Homo faber, in every age. For example, Archimedes. In our history, the greatest representative of mechanical science, Jazari, is also Homo faber. However, it turns out that we have no historical records of Jazari's existence other than his book. The reason is very clear because mechanical science was not taught in madrasas; practical subjects and applied science were considered of low value. In our madrasas, as in the scholastic universities of the pre-modern West, they dealt only with unchanging things, in accordance with the classical world's understanding dating back to Greece. The study of changing phenomena, that is, the study of nature (physis) and the study of tekhne, were outside the scope of universal education. Indeed, Istanbul Technical University, originally named Mühendishane-i Bahr-i Hümayün, could only be established outside the madrasa system and as a military school. The French name for Mühendishane was Ecole de Theoria or Ecole de Mathematiques. It is likely that this new skilled class was called mühendis (engineers), or mathematicians, as a reaction to the madrasa. A similar situation existed in the West, but under pressure from the capitalist class, experimental science had been included in the curriculum of scholastic universities long before us. In fact, initially, the capitalist class used its social power to create alternative academic institutions to scholastic universities that would foster the new experimental science (Royal Society, Academie des Sciences, etc.). The capitalist class's counterpart in philosophy is Homo economicus. Indeed, the class solidarity between Homo faber and Homo economicus resulted in the Scientific and Industrial Revolution.

I remember my first day at ITU, when we had the opportunity to meet our retired Republican generation professors during the orientation class. We were the last students of professors such as Lütfullah Ulukan, Mustafa Akkurt, and Mustafa Gediktaş; I remember them all fondly. What stuck with me from that class was that our professors identified Turkey's fundamental problem as the lack of university-industry collaboration. In general, at our universities, and specifically at ITU during our time, there was only an inefficient business model based on revolving capital. Today, technology parks and Technology Transfer Offices enable more efficient collaboration; I thank everyone involved. Unfortunately, Turkey's R&D expenditure is well below the OECD average and corresponds to only 1.6% of GDP. In the world rankings, Israel is first with 5.4%, followed closely by South Korea with 4.8%, while Turkey ranks only 50th, behind Croatia. It's a bitter truth.

Technological development does not emerge as a short-term process; it emerges through the planned and persistent application of long-term scientific and technical training. Indeed, Francis Bacon says that in order for art-technique (tekhne) to dominate nature, they cannot chase after golden apples like children, they do not want untimely and premature results, they aim for a long-term, complete victory. The Industrial Revolution is the result of such a will and vision. Technological advancement is a marathon run with coordination and confidence across all levels of the state and society, one that will be stubbornly pursued for generations, exceeding the span of a human lifetime. A century after the invention of the steam engine, the locomotive was invented, and another century later, the railroad finally became widespread. I would like to conclude my writing with these words from Hippocrates:

Bios brokhus, Tekhne makre! Life is short, technology is long!