Tim, et al

Tim, I think it is avoiding an inquiry into how
metaphor might work in cognition (and design thinking)
to interpret it as "feeling". I would argue that all
thought is cued and guided by "feelings" -i.e. thought
is an emotionally motivated intention to attend and
consider some "cue" that has become salient in the
mind. As Pinker notes "Once triggered by a propitious
moment, an emotion triggers the cascade of goals and
subgoals that we call thinking and acting. Because the
goals and means are woven into a multiply nested
control structure of subgoals within subgoals within
subgoals, no sharp line divides thinking from feeling,
nor does thinking inevitably precede feeling or vice
versa." Pinker,1997 How the Mind Works p 373 Ledoux
has shown that feelings actually do precede thinking
(1996, Emotional brain 2002, Synaptic Self) saying
that "affective processing occurs in the very first
phase of the act of cognition—we actually have the
emotional reaction many milliseconds before we know
exactly what it is we're reacting to." In preliminary
explorations for his forthcoming book, the Emotional
Mind, Marvin Minsky begins to make the bridge to
intentionality when he says, "In each of our different
emotional states, we find ourselves thinking in
different ways—in which our minds get directed toward
different concerns, with modified goals and
priorities—and with different descriptions of what we
perceive."

I have argued that modes of thinking in design are
motivated by different emotions. Although I view
Metaphor as a form of relational thinking, I have not
as yet gotten as deeply into the workings of metaphor
as I want to (. It is not enough (for me at least) to
say that metaphor makes us perceive the target domain
of a metaphor differently, and that there are
entailments some of which are useful and some which
may distort our understanding of the target situation.
Do we stop with that? What emotional triggers might
motivate metaphor and how does information from the
source of the metaphor satisfy the emotional impulse?
From a practical point of view, how does a designer
become satisfied with a relationship they perceive?
(Please don't anyone say "they just know")

Best to all
Chuck

Dr. Charles Burnette
234 South Third Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
Tel: +215 629 1387
e-mail: [log in to unmask]

-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhDs
in Design
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Tim
Smithers
Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2003 4:33 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Metaphor and Analog ...


Analogy, Comparison, Designing, and Metaphor

I'd like to join this battle in the lines on side
of Klaus, in which I also see Lakoff and Johnson.

To say that "designing is weaving" is to make a
metaphorical statement. This (whole first sentence)
is a declarative statement whose truth few would
dispute, I think.

But, as Klaus says, to say that "designing is weaving"
is not supposed to be a declarative statement whose
truth we can discuss. As he says, truth is irrelevant
here: it does not try to say what designing is; what
doing designing involves. Rather it tries to say what
doing designing feels like. We use this metaphor not
to
try to say something about what designing consists in,
rather to try to say something about what doing
designing
feels like. Metaphors appeal to our feelings and
experiences to work, not to objective likenesses, or
non-likenesses.

If we want to appeal to likenesses we can use analogy.

"Designing is like riding a bicycle" -- we need to
keep
our balance all the time.

"Designing is not like driving a car" -- we don't have
to go just where the road goes.

These statements try to say something about what doing
designing involves or does not involve. But they are
not intended to try to convey an idea of what
designing
feels like: designing doesn't feel like riding a
bicycle,
not to me, at least. (I don't think it helps to
understand
designing to suggest that it does feel like riding a
bicycle.)

(I would also add here that making an analogy is not
to make a comparison. An analogy picks out one or two
likenesses, or non-likenesses. A comparison tries to
identify all likenesses and non-liknesses.)

Now, I would say that a good understanding of
designing
requires an understanding of what it feels like to be
doing designing. It is not just a matter of knowing
the truth and falseness of what doing designing is
like.
If it were it would be wrong to tell someone that
designing
is weaving.

Let me illustrate the importance of
knowing-what-it-feels
-like understanding, as opposed to objectivist kinds
of
understanding, by recalling the desk-top metaphor
behind
the design of many computer interfaces today. To say
that the computer interface is a desk top is not to
try to say what it is like, it is to say how it feels
to use a computer with this kind of interface. Of
course,
you may or may not agree that it feels like being at
your
desk, but this is not the point, nor does
disagreement
make this statement false: there is no truth value
involved
here; it's a metaphorical statement. Nonetheless the
use
of this metaphor has helped a lot of people get on do
things with their computers.

Good metaphors change the way we feel about things,
which changes the way we understand things. They do
not
change the way see things: good analogies can do that.
And they too, can change we understand things. (Which,
you
will note, I am unable express without using metaphors
a
la Lakoff and Johnson, but you understand what I mean,
right?)

Best regards,

Tim Smithers
Donostia / San Sebastián