Hi Phil, Terry and intrepid trackers,

I've been describing the way I use and have taught the use of metaphor in
designing, Phil.  I don't  pretend to any greater authority than this
personal experience and my habit of trying to make something out of it.

Regarding the matter of our different terminology, I would say that we are
talking about the same thing from different corners of the English language
(to continue our topic).

Regarding the bin liner-raincoat metaphor, I would say that it is of course
a metaphor, just not a particularly useful one unless you are zipping them
on and need the metaphor to convey this quality of their use and
maintenance.  There are sources and then there are apt and significant
sources for our targets.  The metaphor store is a large supermarket, and
some things aren't going to be good additions to the soup.  Until Lakoff and
Johnson, most of the thinking about metaphor was just new cans on old
shelves.  I have found their work to be a good clarifier (target/source;
quality-in-a-source/target) and useful addition to design thinking.

Regarding affordance, I defer to others who rely more on this concept than I
do.  I use it in a more functional mode as a capacity to enable.  I think it
can be enhanced.  Metaphor is a tool for including among others things, the
felt-qualities and over-all qualitativeness that John Dewey describes in Art
as Experience.

Regarding the use of metaphor in complex systems.  My first response is to
refer back to Helen Vendler on Shakespeare, but that's not what Terry's
really asking.

He's inquiring about the limits of a design concept or thinking tool and
whether this one in particular is useful in dealing with complex systems.  I
suspect, with Terry, that metaphor has it useful watershed and perhaps its
"second watershed" (Illich) in designing, and that those of us who practice
in the "simpler realms" are not prepared to contribute much to the complex,
self-describing, self-regulating and self-transforming systems he's
concerned with.  The role of consciousness and culture-making in these
complex systems we all live in is a very big topic and beyond my pay grade.

The concept of complex systems, which I suppose could be considered a root
organizational metaphor with its own cultural history, is a qualitative
minimalism intentionally (and usefully, powerfully) focused on mathematical
qualities and relationships in time. As we used to say in the army, "Sorry,
sir, I'm not trained in that."

Let me fall back on an image metaphor:  I imagine myself walking along a
fence line built along the locus of the usefulness of metaphor in designing.
On my side of the fence, there is a profound interest among designers for
ways to deal with (and take responsibility for) the quality of human
experience.

If I crawl over the fence, I suspect that every phone call will be a Turing
Test.

Best to all,

Jerry












On 4/4/10 9:13 AM, "Phil Jones" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Hi Jerry, Terry
> 
> With regard to the issue of encyclopedic knowledge, I completely agree
> about the merits of apprehending a range of different scenarios that
> could potentially be evoked by a single design such as your example
> (Jerry) of the wall. This might just be an issue of language between
> us, but I think this is precisely what encyclopedic knowledge allows,
> unlike dictionary-like knowledge which limits our thinking to
> relatively few fixed meanings. The danger is that as designers we
> might only consider a limited number of conceptual frames (in the
> sense described by Filmore) when users/audiences are actively
> constructing meanings using a much broader range of frames, or that we
> miss opportunities for our design-outcomes by our thinking being
> restricted to one frame only. Your point is also well-made in that,
> conversely, it may be desirable to "sharpen" experience. Using
> Filmore's terminology this could be achieved by eliciting user
> responses that focus on fewer, more concrete, frames.
> 
> Jerry, forgive my obtuseness, and there is no way I can match the wit
> of "what's a meta for" but I am still stuck on the question of whether
> seeing x as y (a wall as a seat, a bin liner as a raincoat) is
> metaphorical, a question of affordance, or both of the above? Seeing a
> man as a wolf uses a source domain to help us understand a target
> domain, using a bin liner as a raincoat projects the role of
> waterproof clothing onto the concept of a disposable container for
> rubbish, this does little to deepen my understanding of bin liners. Do
> you see a difference here, or is it just me? There is undoubtably
> conceptual blending taking place my only question is to the extent
> that this is metaphorical.
> 
> In regard to complexity and metaphor, I feel a little out of my depth
> and need a deeper understanding of the complex systems to which you
> refer (Terry). Designers are used to consciously utilizing metaphors
> in their designs but I think we need to take account of how metaphor
> works cognitively, at the unconscious level. If, as Lakoff and Johnson
> suggest, conceptual metaphors are pervasive, how do they participate
> in our thinking within these "new complex design arenas"?
> 
> best
> 
> Phil Jones
> 
> Senior Lecturer
> MA and BA(Hons) Graphic Design
> The Arts University College at Bournemouth
> [log in to unmask]

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