Shards & Leftovers Dept. cont.
A few comments on the shards and leftovers from recent conversations: My
deeper bio-mechanical entity is sending me signals that it would be wiser to
let matters stand and go drink a cup of cheer, but as usual I, the I that is
the persistent, self-aware fruit of the evolutionary tree, is opting to do
both, talk back to my embodied neurology, and take responsibility for ³my²
actions.
An important leftover from the residue of the Love-Friedman conversation
would seem to be a sharpened realization of the tie between concepts of
design theory and assumptions about mind. A design theory that involves
negotiating transformative preferences and assumes a conversation among
actively participating stakeholder minds must necessarily require some
freedom of choice. Terryıs presentation of mind as a kind of receptacle
showcase and phantom ambassador for decisions made elsewhere doesnıt
obviously allow for this and raises, I think, strong ethical concerns. Would
we really want to travel backwards to Beyond Freedom and Dignity? However
and whenever we are able to reveal the neural-physiological mechanisms of
consciousness, I have a hard time believing it will dissolve the
responsibility required both individually and socially for dwelling
gracefully in the world.
Re: an earlier comment that Jean made about my Yalom quote about Kant and
Schopenhauer, Iım sure Kant didnıt describe consciousness as chimerical.
But the psychiatrist author did and paints a convincing picture of it in his
account of the beliefs and actions of Alfred Rosenberg, the Nazi
propagandist, in his third novel The Spinoza Problem. Why am I not
surprised that Ken knew Yalomıs work? Actually, I thought the interesting
part of the quote was Schopenhauer locating the mind in the world through
the body.
Re: Big-D design. My experience has been largely negative. Iıve worked
with too many studio instructors who skip over the hard work of integrative
and comprehensive development and advise students to ³just get a big idea.²
Yes, some ideas become armatures for others, but work that is appropriately
comprehensive will have many key ideas in play, looking for ways to hook up,
blend, mature and vie for expressive attention. Iıve looked at the
Singapore site. I think it successfully promotes a popular, whiz-bang
misconception of design. There are lots of things to say about design
curricula. Most importantly missing in most is a conception of a
developmental structure for teaching and learning conceptual integration,
the size and kind of faculty required to teach it, and the management needed
to hold the system together in a university setting over time.
Re: design thinking, I like the way it challenges us to both try to fill out
the concept and to critique it.
And now to that cup of cheer and warm wishes to all,
Jerry
--
Jerry Diethelm
Architect - Landscape Architect
Planning & Urban Design Consultant
Prof. Emeritus of Landscape Architecture
and Community Service University of Oregon
2652 Agate St., Eugene, OR 97403
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
web: http://pages.uoregon.edu/diethelm/
541-686-0585 home/work 541-346-1441 UO
541-206-2947 work/cell
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