Dear Klaus
You close your last post with the following:
"...innovations cannot be extrapolated from existing data, they always add
something new and are inherently unpredictable from the past. a design
deviates from what would happen without it and this is the key to
understanding design -- not research of past data."
Since you have been very active on the other thread on the etymology of the
word 'research', perhaps we also need here to dig out the different meanings
of both verbs 'to deviate' and ' to extrapolate' in order to get the fine
nuance of your apparently counter-intuitive argument.
While waiting for further clarifications, I nonetheless think I am
beginning (almost a year later!) to understand your point: researching past
data is relevant but it is the work of historians...As regards designers,
they do not predict their design from the past, "less important in view of
where one wants to be", as said in another of your previous posts. Rather,
designers 'deviate from what would happen without...' their innovations.
Indeed, innovations "cannot be extrapolated from existing data", if however
by 'extrapolation' you mean mere 'speculation from'. In this sens I agree
with you when you say in one of your other posts that, again by definition,
innovations can not/should not be simple copies of the past. The problem
wouldn't then be that of purpose and method, when one considers data on
past/existing events?
Perhaps the main key to your argument lies in the meaning you give to the
word 'deviate'. I wish you could elaborate on this.
Regards
Francois
Montreal
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