Terry,
I have to agree with you that
> there are many design situations that are simply too
> complex for any designer to understand or think their way round.
And I'll agree that you are right that the
> behaviour of some design situations is beyond human thinking.
I'd be interested in the list of the many
> design fields (usually outside traditional 'Art and Design' fields) [that]
> are dominated by these sorts of design situations.
but I suspect that you are right on practical and legal levels, especially within engineering design. You say that the
> only option proven to work in these complex design situations is
> mathematically-based predictive modeling
and I know that there are many situations (especially in structural engineering) where rapid prototyping is best done as a virtual model of some sort. Are there no limits to that?
Your current "usually outside traditional 'Art and Design' fields" disclaimer makes your comments a bit more reasonable but I have understood recent posts to mean that you were claiming that mathematically-based predictive modeling as a paradigm would dominate All design fields including those inside "traditional 'Art and Design' fields." (I'm still not completely clear on what "traditional 'Art and Design' fields" are but I have a vague idea what the term is meant to mean.) Have I been misunderstanding you? Are you just claiming that you think the situations where mathematically-based predictive modeling works are the interesting design problems?
Do you believe that design situations that are not simply too complex for any designer to understand or think their way round are unworthy of anyone's attention? You seemed to claim earlier that all aspects of design not so complex would be completely automated, eliminating this sort of design as a professional activity. Am I understanding that correctly?
Do you believe that there are no design situations of importance where mathematically-based predictive modeling is unlikely to be fruitful?
Do you believe that there are no design situations that are really too complex for any designer to understand or think their way round, thus making the design of a mathematically-based predictive model unlikely? (If so, do you care to comment on the current crisis in economics, where the tendency to develop mathematical models of everything has appeared to show a gap between the models and complex reality?)
I don't believe that anyone would make the case that there are no important design problems (especially in engineering) where mathematically-based predictive modeling is not vital. What I am unable to understand is what seems to be a belief that all complex design (even where the complexity is created by social and cultural issues) is subject to mathematically-based predictive modeling.
Is your argument with Klaus over which design problems each of you finds interesting or important? Is it a fight over what variety of design each of you sees as most deserving of the honorific "design"?
Care to elaborate on what design fields are dominated by the sorts of design situations subject to mathematically-based predictive modeling and which are not?
Gunnar
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