A further thought on reading Simon. It is important to know how to read Simon's the Sciences, including his so called flawed definition ( I have already explained how it is not a definition in the classical sense, biut a focal meaning!)
CLive Dilnot once read in Simon!s socalled definition a criticality in design, a call to address deficiencies. I would rather say Dilnot READ INTO Simon that idea, because neither Simon,s positivism nor his refusal to admit substantively normative end values could warrant this, if you think about it. For him ends are mere preferences, given facts, not critical, substantively normative claims. (you can't just say I don't like something and call that a criticality! You have at least say that it is wrong)
But still, even though Dilnot read into Simon such an idea, I would say Dilnot read Simon well. He took the text in Simon and shaped it to mean what really mattered. His thoughtful thinking, Revisiting the very ground that Simon,s words failed to show, and showing it better than Simon understood himself, was a a good reading of Simon, and also, in Gunther Kress,s sense of the word, a Design of signs, unbridled by a semiotics of mere use, which we must interrogate
Jude
________________________________________
From: CHUA Soo Meng Jude (PLS)
Sent: Monday, September 02, 2013 1:42 PM
To: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
Subject: RE: The contributions of Herb Simon
I would like to add perhaps in what sense I can agree with Don that the Sciences (3rd edition) is not about design: therein in the Sciences is the idea that design itself be instrumentalised towards some other non-design related ends. Esp if design can be design w/o final goals (what nonsense is that?! You say), then it perhaps has evolved from design typically understood (by engineers) into something else altogether, viz a process of evolving, and catalyzing new ideas, visions, preferences, culture etc... It started out as a kind of design, but ended up a kind of exploration (instrumentalizing the act of designing for this, which may not be a design goal). Perhaps this is more from March, but I see in both Simon and March this connection. If design is aimed at a preferred state of affairs (which somewhat suggests that the preferred state is understood as such, preferred), but one employs designing *as if* for some preferred state of affairs but *in actual fact* to stimulate accidental consequences that could only on hindsight be judged to be preferable, is the latter still design? Sounds more like (esp this way of "designing" social policies) a kind of liberal political theory, or even educational theory. (not surprisingly Simon's background was polticial science) It may be designing, from the external view point, but intensionally, it's not that anymore: they look the same, but its Clark Ken, not Superman. But this too is a kind of design: it is to design Design itself. It is to exploit Design in such a way that there is no premeditated final goal one is fixated about, and to see what Desiging can lead to. In this sense the question that truly matter is not, whether this or that is (*be*) design (which is kind of descriptive project), but whether design can *become* this or that. In other words, the Sciences of the artificial went from being a mere descriptive account of design (for some like Don a failed one), to becoming a design project on Design itself. Basically, let Design run its course, and see what effects it could emerge. There is a kind of intriguidng PERFORMATIVE consistency in the Sciences. It practices what it preaches, precisely in defining and chararaterizing design that way it does. It is answering the question, What is Design not merely by staring at designing and giving an account of it, but by an act of Desiging on Design itself, a kind of unconcealment of what Design can further be...and in this way, perhaps not many professional designers see it this way because they do not envision design *becoming* this (would you all not lose your jobs if you went about merely experimenting and opening up, in a liberal way, new ideas, and cultures? Will that please the client? Will that bring in profit for the firm to survive? How can design be like this? But that is perhaps not the point). So even if all the professional designer came together and agree unanimously that this is not what they are doing when they self-consciously design, that is no objection: The Sciences points out, if not what professional designers do, but what, essentially, or better, focally, design can be, and perhaps should be or should be open to doing. This is why, I think, the Sciences is such a very important text. It's not a complete solution. But one needs to see the forest, and not merely the trees.
J
Ps. I don't mean to disagree with you irreconciliably, Don. I very much enjoy your work and look forward to your revised Everyday Design. At least with me you need not worry: if I am so charitable with Simon, I will be charitable with your revised book as well.
Pps. I should also add that inspite of these exchanges with Eduardo, MP, Ken and others, I have found this thread very helpful for challenging my thinking, and thus immensely beneficial. It's good to have some people who care passionately about these ideas to discuss them with, no matter which side you take on the debate
-----Original Message-----
From: CHUA Soo Meng Jude (PLS)
Sent: Monday, 02 September, 2013 11:47 AM
To: 'PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design'
Subject: RE: The contributions of Herb Simon
Given Don's personal knowledge of Simon, I am afraid what he says will end up the final word, esp for the PhD students here in this list. But I want to say that there is a lot more than computer science in the Sciences of the Artificial, and worry if Don's own reading itself risks being reductionistic. It is about design, perhaps not graphic design or of everyday things, but social planning, even educational curriculums, etc. Fair enough: I think we'll have to concede that in Simon there's an overdose of scientism, esp logical positivism (even though he renounced that, and a little late in life?) , and the Sciences in the 3rd ed is a little like Rome, with one civilization awkwardly piled into of another, and the basis for the first ill fitted for (but forcedly fitted) holding up the newer insights an dtrajectories of thought. Even so, I myself find the earlier versions disappointing and the 3rd edition rather stimulating. There's a strong eutrapelian thread in the 3rd edition, and fair enough the scienitism will forever be a poor ground, and new grounds need to be located, but there's an exciting vision of the evolutionary moving towards new discoveries of ideas, which precisely sits uneasily with his earlier, as Don pointed out, means-end kind of analysis (because under positivism, the ends are mere given preferences, there's no debate about these, and only the means can be discussed). There's a delightful liberalism in Simon's theory of design (even though I am not sure if he would have thought of himself a liberal), the opening up of new ideas, consequences, preferences, etc (most of which is previously unplanned for). The Sciences is still an exciting text for further semiosis. Do not throw it away!
J
-----Original Message-----
His book "Sciences of the Artificial" was NOT about design: it was primarily about computer science. He argued that most science dealt with the real world. Computer science dealt with the the artificial world that it itself had created. Yes, he talked about design, but as an information processing activity.
I was extremely impressed with the first edition of the book. it was short and succinct. A few years ago i decided to reread it but could not find my copy. So i bought the latest edition (third). I was greatly disappointed.
He rambled on and on and, to me, showed a lack of knowledge of the real work going on in design. The book serves as a warning to authors: beware of revising a well-known book. (A fear I have about my soon to be published revision of a well-known book: did I follow in Simon's footsteps and make it worse?)
Herb was brilliant He changed the face of economic theory. He was instrumental in transforming Psychology into a real science. He is one of the co founders of the discipline known today as Artificial Intelligence (AI). His work with Newell was greatly influential.
But I also believe his powerful methods led him astray. His views are too narrow. He inspired a number of workers (including me) to go on to push his approaches far beyond what he approved of. Ideas march on, and oftentimes the fundamental ideas develop the foundations for their own overthrow.
So yes, honor Simon. But do not thereby always follow in his footsteps. To do so would irritate him above all: he wanted people to think, to develop new ways of thinking. If his work leads to people developing new approaches that overthrow some of his approaches, he would be pleased.
Don
--
Don Norman
Nielsen Norman Group, IDEO Fellow
[log in to unmask] www.jnd.org http://www.core77.com/blog/columns/
Book: "Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded<http://amzn.to/ZOMyys>"
(DOET2). Pub date: November 2013
Course: Udacity On-Line course based on
DOET2<https://www.udacity.com/course/design101> (free).
Nov 2013.
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