Hello and welcome to ockm.ai
My name is Josh and I use this as a place to develop my personal thoughts on a variety of topics including software engineering, science, faith, AI, data, and career. By profession I am a software engineer who most recently began specializing in distributed data systems. I have a B.S. in Information Technology Systems from Regent University and a M.S. in Computer Science from Georgia Tech. My master’s degree emphasis was Interactive Intelligence, which could be thought of as the intersection of AI/ML and User Experience (UX).
Motivations
My motivation for creating Ockm is complicated. I grew up in a fundamentalist environment, where extremely literal interpretations of the Bible were the norm. Logic, rationality, and higher education were scorned in much of my early environment. Nonetheless, as a teenager I began questioning many of these ideas. As an adult I started back at ground zero, asking the most rudimental questions possible, something not encouraged in my early years.
As I learned about AI in college, it raised some existential questions, specifically about the nature of humanity and the existence of God and his relationship to us (or lack thereof, depending on your view). For example, are we really just accidentally animated matter or do we have souls? Does science have the final word on the nature of reality or should we look elsewhere? Is personal faith and science at complete odds? Can science answer all questions? There are also less-existential questions, though still serious, which I am grappling with as well. For example, what is the significance of work? How does one find satisfaction in career? All of these are worthy of consideration.
Ockm is a public-facing display of how I am working through these questions. I feel the accountability of an open site motivates honest evaluation and carefully crafted analysis and thought.
A Disclaimer
Please note that I am very aware of my lack of qualifications in most of these subjects. This blog is in no way an attempt to assert some authority on subjects of which I know so little. However, I also know that most people are in my position in terms of specialized knowledge (that is to say, we have very little of it) and that these serious topics must be grappled with, despite our ignorance on the subject. Dare I say, if one is honest enough, can you stumble (or be unknowingly led) to something close to the truth? I hope so and I am at least willing to spend my life trying.
Feedback
I would love to hear from you about anything I post. Feel free to email me at josh@ockm.net or comment directly on any of the articles.
