Dear Don,
I feel that there are two problems that have made a mess of this debate and
have done so since at least the 70s when cognitive neuro-science began to
offer deeper insights into subjective and subconscious phenomena and
behaviours.
1. That the concepts of 'emotion', 'feelings', 'intuition', 'creativity'
simply don't work now we have better understanding of underlying human
physiological, cogintive and behavioural processes.
2. That researchers in this area have not been brave enough to go against
the use of 'emotion', 'feelings', 'intuition' and 'creativity', and derive
new concepts to replace them .
I remember first noticing this reading Ortony, Clore and Collins and
realising they were jumping through hoops with difficulty trying to force
their insights into working alongside a traditional view of 'emotion'. They
were not prepared to create alterntive concepts to emotion.
Damasio has just about blown apart the epistemolgical and physiological
foundations of the concepts of 'emotion' and 'feeling' yet he explicitly
states it would be too much all at the same time to reconceptualise emotion
and feeling.
The reality is simple and supported from many directions - the traditional
concepts of 'emotion', 'feeling', 'intuition' and 'creativity' don't align
well with what we now know about humans internal functioning, thinking
external behaviour. They work especially badly for design research and
design theory. We need a new set of concepts and discourse to replace
'emotion', 'feelings', 'intuition' and 'creativity'.
Wondering how you would tackle it?
Best wishes,
Terry
PS I did an overview of Damasio's ideas and how they might apply to design
theory:
http://www.love.com.au/PublicationsTLminisite/2003/Damasio.htm
and a visual representation of them:
http://www.love.com.au/PublicationsTLminisite/2009/Linus%20Pauling%20lecture
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