Dear Klaus, Ranjan, Don, Jude, and Kari,
This is a quick response to your interesting contributions on various aspects of Herbert Simon’s (1996) Sciences of the Artificial.
Klaus, it seems to me that Simon was offering an existential definition. That is, his definition applies to everyone – without exception – “who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones.” (Simon 1996: 111). Seeking to change existing situations into preferred ones is not a distinction for professionalism. It was my note, and not Simon’s text, that added the issue of professionalism.
Simply put, all humans devise courses of action aimed at changing our current situation into something we’d prefer, whether it is as simple a matter as my brewing a cup of tea or as complicated and difficult a matter as sending human beings to the moon and bringing them back safe to earth. That is an existential quality of human being.
Those who are paid or hope to be paid to change what exists into something preferred are professionals. In effect, we are designated problem solvers for legitimate problem owners. Without a long series of added clauses, I’ll add that this includes those who imagine or invent preferred situations for what doesn’t exist, including things that are so new and innovative that we don’t yet imagine them.
The existential note is Simon’s idea. The professional note is mine.
Ranjan, it seems to me that one may read Simon’s text in many ways. I don’t agree with everything Simon said, but I think he opened a field of inquiry at a time when few people had proposed these kinds of ideas. What I get out of Simon’s book is a heuristic notion that design requires the sciences as well as the practical arts. This opens a path to kinds of design research that were nearly never on the agenda when Simon published the first edition of his book in 1969. The key idea that I find useful in Simon is that the way forward for design research requires analytical inquiry and disciplined rigor along with intuitive creativity and heuristic probes.
Don, I agree with you on the nature of Simon’s general research program. But I believe that one may read Sciences of the Artificial in several ways, and this does not require a reductive understanding. Whatever Simon’s personal approach was – and I’d accept your interpretation – I think that we can draw multiple conclusions from this book that Simon himself may not entirely have intended.
There is a parallel case with the reception of Erwin Schrodinger’s (2012 [1944]) book, What is Life?. The book helped to launch the field of molecular biology. What is interesting about the book is that a great deal of the science was already outdated and many of Schrodinger’s conclusions were even wrong. Nevertheless, the book had profound impact and opened a conversation with multiple interpretations that helped to drive the field forward. Leah Ceccarelli’s (2001: 61-110) book discusses this. One interesting fact is that the book gave rise to four major interpretive frames (Ceccarelli 2001: 108), where the differing scientists within the two communities of physics and biology maintained either antireductionist or reductionist positions in their reading of Schrodinger. I believe that one may read Sciences of the Artificial in similar, multiple ways.
As you suggest, Simon did not want disciples, but engaged readers. The power of his book lies in its abilities to stimulate ideas and conversations that did not occur to him.
Jude, Kari, thanks for your comments and thanks for the paper.
Yours,
Ken
Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished Professor | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia | [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> | Mobile +61 404 830 462 | Home Page http://www.swinburne.edu.au/design/people/Professor-Ken-Friedman-ID22.html<http://www.swinburne.edu.au/design> Academia Page http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman About Me Page http://about.me/ken_friedman
Guest Professor | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China
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References
Ceccarelli, Leah. 2001. Shaping Science with Rhetoric. The Cases of Dobzhansky, Schrodinger, and Wilson. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Schrodinger, Erwin. 2012 [1944]. What is Life? And Mind and Matter. With Autobiographical Sketches and a foreword by Roger Penrose. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Simon, Herbert. 1996. The Sciences of the Artificial. 3nd edition. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.
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Klaus Krippendorff wrote:
—snip—
i agree that design is an existential human ability. to me, simon’s criterion to improve existing conditions, is not sufficient to distinguish professional designers from what all humans do to make decisions, including creating something that improves their lives.
—snip—
M P Ranjan wrote:
—snip—
I propose to do a semantic analysis of Simon’s text to show that he is more about science and engineering, the hard sciences in patricular and with no reference to insights from the soft sciences and the very active space of active design practice over a century or so if not longer. His generalisations are attractive but not rooted in practice and therefore misses the nuances of design thought and action by a mile.
—snip—
Don Norman wrote:
—snip—
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.
—snip—
Jude Chua wrote:
—snip—
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!
—snip—
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