Dear Birger,

Thank you for your message

Yes, I know and used to hold the same  way of seeing intuition, creativity
and their role in design for  the future that you described. I now think
there is good evidence that it is false and unhelpful as a way forward.

I'm suggesting there is considerable evidence now to move on from there. I'm
asking that you set aside all of the traditional perspectives on  design and
hold the possibility that it may be incorrect, irrelevant, partial,
misleading and supported and privileged only as a result of self-interest
and the maintenance of existing communities of practice in some design
realms.  

One starting point in problematizing theories and concepts of design is to
question the validity of the way that  designers  and design researchers
(including reified theorists such as Csikzentmihaly) have assumed and
privileged 'creative individuals' as the primary explanation of creating
good designs. Immediately, it is obvious there is significant evidence that
challenges these widely held assumptions.

I'm drawing attention to the extensive  evidence to question these
assumptions and suggesting that it will be helpful to the field to move on
from being obsessed about 'creativity' and 'creative persons',  in order to
develop  new foundations for design theory, design education and design
practice.

The primary aim  of all design practice,  education and research is to
produce good designs for  a better future. Designs are the specifications
for making and doing things. Designs consist of instructions. . Identifying
the parameters of these instructions in any individual  design can be done
in various ways  -  by heuristics, research, science, theories, models,
artificial intelligence, data mining - often better than and instead of the
'creativity' of human designers.

The intuition of creative human designers  is only one way,  and for many
design problems and contexts, not a very good way. Much of the work of
'creative individuals' is not that special, and certainly  not some kind of
magic. Much of what was previously viewed as being only possible as a result
of human creativity  and genius  has already been automated  -although this
is often overlooked by those who privilege creativity  and individuals'
design skills as the basis for creating designs.  

In this, the opinions of Csikzentmihaly about human creative  behaviour is
epistemologically only a peripheral side issue, almost certainly irrelevant
to most aspects of the creation of designs.  

I understand where you are coming from and am suggesting it is possible and
helpful to move on from the positions and theories currently taken for given
in the design fields. Particularly, I'm suggesting it is important  to move
on from the obsession with human creativity as if it were always  only the
best way to create designs. Already, it is obviously not true. The question
is how best to build more appropriate theory and education programs and
research priorities for Design.
 
I suggest we agree in our understanding of  intuition, creativity and what a
design is. We differ, however, in terms of understanding the practical
details of how most designs are created, now and for the future. 

Best wishes,
Terry

===
Dr Terence Love FDRS, AMIMechE, PMACM, MISI
[log in to unmask]  Mob: +61 434 975 848

Dept of Design, 
Researcher, Social Program Evaluation Research Unit
Dept of Psychology and Social Sciences
Edith Cowan University, Western Australia

Dept of Design
Curtin University, Western Australia

Honorary Visiting  Researcher, IEED
Management School, Lancaster University, UK
===


-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related
research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Birger
Sevaldson
Sent: 13 October 2011 11:49
To: Dr Terence Love
Subject: intuition and creativity RE: Are PhDs a threat to design education?

Dear Terry

It seems I have a different view on intuition than you. I think intuition is
needed even more in the future. I believe that intuition is a result of deep
knowledge. Information is not the same as internalized knowledge and
intuition is a skill of the expert who has deep knowledge and insight.
This is in line with the Dreyfus and Dreyfus five stage skill acquisition
model.
Found here:
http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA084551&Location=%20U2&doc=GetTRDo
c.pdf

Facing the complexity of the challenges we are facing I think intuition and
also creativity will be needed more in the future and not less. Though the
discussion on creativity is a different one, for now I would only like to
point to the fact that research conducted by prominent creativity
researchers like Csikzentmihaly report on repeating patterns from the most
brilliant performers and researchers from all kinds of professions and
research fields where incubation is needed to derive creative solutions from
information. The old creativity model of Jaques Hadamard seems to be
relevant in truly creative peoples work. The model indicates four stages:

Preparation
Incubation
Illumination
Verification

This points to the fact that truly remarkable creative people almost with no
exception are engaged in deeply concentrated personal processes, described
as Flow by Cikszentmihailyi and that deep and personal creative processes
are absolutely needed to arrive at creative outputs from the complex
information at hand. A fact to my mind overlooked by many people today where
co-design, idea cards and brain storming seem to be the dominant ways of
creative work in design and in a society that generally is disruptive and
fragmented and where one constantly has to fight for the time for deep
thought. These quick and collaborative approaches are good but do not
replace the deep individual long creative processes found in almost all
brilliant peoples work. Creativity has also a social dimension but it is in
the combination of the individual and the context it emerges.

Creativity is dependent on deep insight (information transformed to
knowledge) in the subject but also curiosity and love and delight for the
subject, that is, emotional engagement.  (e.g. read chapter three in
Cikszentmihailyi: Creativity, Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and
Invention.)

Best
Birger