On 5/1/07 2:26 PM, "Ken Friedman" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Whether or not they designed as we do, I'd argue
> that our pre-human ancestors designed. I'd hypothesize that the
> pre-human ability to design gave rise to the human ability to design,
> shaping us and helping to make us human.
My version of this story is an evolutionary biological perspective beginning
at the dawning of human consciousness, that special fruiting of life's tree.
Projecting backward, I suspect that early awareness was purposeful and
emotional, the ancestor of what we experience today.
On this view there were three original intentional processes, but they
operated as one and had not yet been named. We call them
{surviving/knowing/designing}.
Initially all were in service to surviving, since this is an evolutionary
tale. Knowing meant being able to apply stored experience to critical
situations. Designing meant using knowledge to devise better methods and to
make tools, and eventually lead to the creation and use of symbols and
symbolisms, such as language, to enormous competitive advantage.
And (skipping ahead) to an elaborate coat of many cultures.
Alas, naming the intentional processes has led to the modern perception of
their separation I call "the unintentional fallacy of misplaced
completeness." As author Ursula K. LeGuin has observed, people didn't
wander around for thousands of years just making statements of fact (such as
'The baby is burning.") to one another. Knowing was always situational just
as designing is today. Designing in advanced cultures stretches from its
origins in survival to a complex brain's desire for life enhancement.
Continued growth of the awareness of our intentional awareness (or at least
the potential for it) leads of course to the contemporary chapter on design
research - and to the need to admit that there is more than one way to tell
this story.
Regards to all,
Jerry
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Jerry Diethelm
Architect - Landscape Architect
Planning & Urban Design Consultant
Prof. Emeritus of Landscape Architecture
and Community Service € University of Oregon
2652 Agate St., Eugene, OR 97403
€ e-mail: [log in to unmask]
€ web: http://www.uoregon.edu/~diethelm
€ 541-686-0585 home/work 541-346-1441 UO
€ 541-206-2947 work/cell
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