Klaus,
Klaus Krippendorff wrote:
> [...]
> regarding neurobiological findings, i am very skeptical and go with rosan in
> this respect. i have no doubt that drugs can influence the (destructive)
> creativity of the brain, that a brain is always involved were people do
> something, but this does not mean that neurobiology can shed light on
> processes of design.
>
> design does not occur in the vacuum of someone's cognition. it is a
> profession, a collaborative affair, and it arises in interaction with other
> designers and clients. not realizing this is like suggesting that studying
> one specimen of a certain sex, could explain reproduction, or scanning the
> mind of a mathematician could tell you much about banking.
In my view:
Sure, design involves collaboration. But it's a collaboration between
cognitive agents. Neurobiology helps explain how the brain thinks.
This impacts on the mind's operation, including how and how well things
like memory, experience, etc influence what we consciously think. We
communicate only about things we're conscious of. So neurobiology
PARTLY informs what we communicate and how we communicate it.
Other minds will interpret what they are communicated with respect to a
context, which is PARTLY structured by their own neurobiology.
Culture, society, etc influence the context in which we interpret stuff.
But so does the neurobiology of the brain. If it weren't for the
specific neurobiological functions in an agent's brain, the agent
wouldn't have the specific context to interpret perceptions (including
stuff communicated by others) as the agent will.
It is also the case that an agent's environment can affect one's
neurobiology. The brains of children continue to wire themselves quite
vigorously. Indeed, there is evidence that the brain continues to
develop its structure quite substantially for a couple of *decades*.
However, the effects that the environment can exert on an agent's brain
is limited by the 'flexibility' of the brain to respond. Here's where
neurobiology comes in again. In this case, the underlying structures
identified by neurobiology can inform us about the kinds of effects that
the environment can exert.
So, neurobiology seems to me to be a pretty important building block of
how we carry out activities, including design activities.
>
> design is also enmeshed in culture, the availability of tools, technology,
> and language. not realizing this is like suggesting that studying a fish in
> an aquarium could offer insights about the ecology of fish in the ocean.
>
> cognitivism is an extreme form of reductionism. it is emerging from
> psychology, having reached a dead end, and constitutes a revision of the
> earlier behaviorism in the guise of the computational metaphor.
>
> celebrating this kind of knowledge is another unfortunate example of
> designers chasing fashionable concepts and forgetting what they are about,
> their own mission in this world.
>
I would welcome hearing about a specific other approach (as opposed to
the cognitivist/reductionist/computational-metaphor), but I'm having a
hard time seeing it. Maybe it's my own limitations as a result of my
engineering background (I grant that).
Cheers.
Fil
--
Prof. Filippo A. Salustri, Ph.D., P.Eng.
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Ryerson University Tel: 416/979-5000 x7749
350 Victoria St. Fax: 416/979-5265
Toronto, ON email: [log in to unmask]
M5B 2K3 Canada http://deed.ryerson.ca/~fil/
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