Dear Ken,

Before I continue, I apologise in advance for typos etc. I am writing this
'one shot' without review or revisions due to shortage of time.

1. I didn't 'offer the model of cliodynamics without explanation'. I
suggested 'having Design History analyses of complex interactions in
historical phenomena involving multiple feedback loops by which designed
outputs interact in ways that create *dynamic* outcomes in history would be
really useful for advancing the field of design' and pointed to some
graphic examples of where one researcher had looked at the dynamics of an
historical situation (24 Aug 12). In that case, it was only incidental that
the method used was 'cliodynamics.

2. Tim and yourself produced the analyses and discussion of cliodynamics. My
focus is methods that enable designers and researchers to understand the
dynamic behaviour of outcomes shaped by multiple factors and feedback loops.
Cliodynamics is but one of those methods and is relatively weak on feedback
loops. Turchin's focus as I understand it is through non-linear time series
analysis (see www.eeb.uconn.edu/people/turchin/NLTSM.htm ). I know some
about this kind of approach because in 1984 I worked as a programmer at
Gwlym Jenkins and Pa creating a distributed networked real time computerised
modelling of gas usage and production for France. The business can out of
the research at Lancaster University of Gwilym Jenkins and George Box who
were pioneers in time series analysis and its application to real world
historical analysis and forecasting. In 1984, it involved around a dozen PhD
mathematicians and a handful of scientific programmers for each model. Now
you get one of the models, Arima, on a $100 scientific calculator.

3. Somehow you seem to be thinking what to me seems rather weirdly
about dynamics analysis and I suspect we have a paradigm difference. I'm
understanding your position as 'History first and then make a 'dynamic
model' to represent its findings'?

4. My perspective is 'historical analysis of complex outcomes cannot
be done in words'. Instead, it is better done through use of a dynamic
analysis - mostly *instead* of the historical analysis. The historical
analyses can be done later by interpreting the output of the dynamic
analysis.

5. The mathematical tools for the dynamic analyses may vary. Mostly
I've found, in line with MIT's work in history in schools, that system
dynamics works easily, mainly because it requires less years of maths
education than other approaches.

6. Ibn Khaldun is the founder of historiography and he suggested
mathematical modelling as the basis for understanding history as the basis
for historiography. The other approaches to historical analysis taught in
schools and universities seem to run the risks of the seven failures of
analysis he described.

7. You, from your background, suggest that the role of dynamic analyses
is limited and should be done through history. I suggest this is over egging
the role of history and that conventional historical analysis is both less
useful and less accurate than claimed.

8. From my background, I see enormous shortcomings with historical
analyses that relate to their inability to address the ways complex factors
and feedback loops influence outcomes. For me, systems dynamics and similar
approaches to dynamic modelling address these issues much better than
conventional historical analysis. Hence, I see less need for people to be
skilled in historical analysis and more need and benefit for people to be
skilled in dynamic systems analysis.

9. Several people on this list use systems analysis methods.
Typically, systems analysis would be used to understand the behaviour of
outcomes for situations involving feedback loops. Usually, this offers
better understanding than looking at design history.

10. The latter opens up an interesting question. The primary role of
historical analysis is to give insights into the behaviour of the present
and the future. If understanding the behaviour of the present and
predicting the future can be done better using tools of dynamic analyses,
does historical analysis continue to have any significant role. ( I realise
this idea is emotionally and psychologically challenging - how would we
know who we are and have meaning if we didn't know our history? As for many
understanding of history is false, I suspect the loss of that kind of
historical knowledge is of no great significance to us as individuals .)

11. System dynamics at its simplest involves the mathematical skills of
around the middle of secondary school. I suggest most designers and design
researchers have got through secondary school.

12. As you know, across Design as a whole, he majority of design
activity is in technical design fields depending on designers to have some
skills in science and mathematics. For researchers, there is increased need
for understanding mathematics - at least in terms of being able to undertake
analyses of their research data. *If* the phd-design list is representative
of the whole of the design field then one would expect reasonable basic
mathematical skills of more than half the members of the list. These
skills would be sufficient for gaining ordinary everyday understanding of
the behaviour of complex design outcomes via systems dynamics. More
advanced mathematical skills would be found in those involved in engineering
design and in research involving the more mathematical end of data analyses.
Hence, my guess that 25% of the list has good mathematical skills.

13. You wrote ' For most designers and researchers in design, history
helps us to understand the past. We use history to develop a repertoire of
useful, situated examples. History helps us to form a basis for ethical
decisions based on what we know of others have done - their past actions and
the consequences of their deeds. History shapes a conversation across
generations.' I'm suggesting that conventional historical analysis does this
badly for multiple reasons - including that it does not adequately represent
the effects of multiple factors and feedback loops as well as the problems
identified by Ibn Khaldun and Turchin.

14. You wrote ' Is there some other purpose to history that would
suggest that skilled, highly trained historians ought to get cross-training
in mathematics and statistics, systems theory or engineering?' This reifies
the current paradigm of 'what it is to be a highly skilled historian'.
Rather than historians having supplementary training in maths etc, I'm
suggesting, following Ibn Khaldun, they have such training *instead of*
training in historical analysis.

We seem to be at a belief-based impasse here. Your writing suggests you are
seeing things in terms of slight modifications to the status quo of design
history analysis and its dominant role in shaping what is taught and
researched relating to Design.

In contrast, I'm suggesting that across design fields we have moved on an
no longer need that role of design history, and that conventional
historical analysis is outmoded both in design and elsewhere and better
replaced, as Ibn Khaldun appears to have suggested, by a more scientific
approach in which the phenomena are modelled mathematically.

Warm regards,
Terence
==
Dr Terence Love, FDRS, AMIMechE, PMACM, MISI
PhD, B.A. (Hons) Eng, P.G.C.E
School of Design and Art, Curtin University, Western Australia
Psychology and Social Science, Edith Cowan University, Western Australia
Honorary Fellow, IEED, Management School, Lancaster University, UK

PO Box 226, Quinns Rocks, Western Australia 6030
[log in to unmask] +61 (0)4 3497 5848
==