Hello Francois,
How are you going? Many thanks for your message.
I think there is not a lot of difference in English between 'choice' (as in make a choice) and 'choosing'. This is in the same way that other activities in English become nominalised as in 'go for a "swim"' and 'swimming' - except of course in one the act has finished and in the other that it is continuing (as in continuing present).
I feel the 'something' that is in a specification (design) has to remain as the same meaning 'some thing' with all the looseness and specificity that.
Certainly somethings more tightly specified can be used if you restrict the 'thing' to physical objects.
If design activity can include the design of other things besides products, however, then it becomes a little more interesting. Mereology or mereotoplogy is likely to have a role to play regardless - and it appears to have been underused in many areas of design.
There are lots of interesting questions around how does the design theory and understanding of design operate when the designed output is not physical. For example, a project which I'm peripherally involved focuses on the design of specific complex emotions. It's then a serious design theory question to ask how does a design specification work to specify the design of a particularly complex emotion - think for example the emotions of 'knurd' or 'tartle', ' Fremdschämen' or ' Koi No Yokan' and then work out how to exactly make a specification of them them as a design rather than as an allegory.
I haven't an answer to this yet - if anyone on the list has done this, please let me know!
I can see mereotoplogy potentially has a role because types of emotions nestle in the sense that one can say of an emotion, well it’s a part of happiness, with . . . .
Another example: Someone was explaining to me the meaning of the Farsi emotional term 'Isqh' - as full blown passion for someone, that also contains the awareness that the passion is part of something larger, and also that one is going into the situation aware with both eyes open. Which is very different from the emotion of (say) 'romance'.
How would you specify a design? It’s a good question :-)
All the best,
Terry
-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Francois Nsenga
Sent: Saturday, 10 May 2014 1:53 PM
To: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
Cc: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Why designers need maths
Dear Terry and all
Terry, in one of your response to Gunnar yesterday, you wrote:
" ...the output of all design fields is *a specification for something to be made or done* "
I entirely agree that "the output of all design - subfields - is a specification, either implemented by the designer her/himself in a studio or workshop, or by skilled technicians and laborers in a factory or any other corresponding production set up.
I wish, however, you had elaborated as well upon what is that "something"
that is specified by the designer. Filippo Salustri gave you/us a hint in his last post dated April 27, but neither you nor anyone else picked it up with a view to exchange further on what that "something" of our shared concern is, and ought to be.
In an off-list exchange I subsequently had with Fill, we both came to agree that this "something" is most probably, space! In a way or in another, using any language (including maths that would be needed for a given type and level of specification), and any method you may think of, Fil, myself, and probably others are convinced that the fundamental "something" that we all do as designers is first and foremost to enclose space into 'specified'
tangible shapes, or 'regions' as Fill says in his highly edifying - yet overlooked? - paper:
*http://digitalcommons.ryerson.ca/islandora/object/RULA%3A310
<http://digitalcommons.ryerson.ca/islandora/object/RULA%3A310>*
And those interested to dig deeper into this conceptualization of the 'object' of design, you may also wish to give a glimpse at the initial insight I co-authored in 2004, under the title: "*The Geography of Material Artefacts and an Outline for Synergetic Geography" (1).* Back to "specification" of that "something" that, if you too agree, is a "region" in space, in your successive late posts you insisted instead that 'specification' is a "choosing process". I don't know that much about the English connotation but, in French for instance, a difference is made between "choix" (n) and "choisir" (v), and "sélection" (n) and
"sélectionner" (v).
Perhaps, in your posts you meant 'selection' instead of 'choice'. As the former term connotes a more rigorously reasoned process that, on appropriate occasion, would incidentally necessitate expressing it in certain and appropriate level of mathematical language.
Thank you for having so tenaciously led us to this deeper and better understanding of what we do!
Best wishes
Francois
On Fri, May 9, 2014 at 8:28 PM, Terence Love <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> (...)
>
>
> I'm suggesting that design is fundamentally ONLY a choice process.
> That is a process of choosing what will be included in the design, the
> specification document that describes the outcome that can later be
> done or made.
>
(...)
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