Dear Chuck,

Thank you for your contributions on the thread ' Assume fixed number of colours in design?' about the Theory of Design Thinking.

In the concluding sentences of your last post. You wrote, ' Many patterns of thought, even habits of mind, are predictive of results. Otherwise there would be no expertise.'

This is correct. Even in the most difficult situations where things are too complex to understand and there is insufficient information, we  always have some ways of predicting the outcomes of what we do or plan or design. The problem is that we predict incorrectly in many situations.

We call these patterns of thought and habits of mind that predict results names like intuition, hunches , feelings, insights, creative judgement etc. They are skills experts develop and hone. For situations that are close in time and space and have direct causality, and that we have lots of relevant experience,  they are mostly successful.

The problem is, as Forrester** noted,  we are more often wrong that right when we do this when  events are NOT close in time and space and do NOT have obviously direct causality, regardless of whether we have relevant experience. You would have thought 50%  wrong or right in the worst case, but apparently we do worse than random  - and there are good reasons why we do. I've described my own finding of the  two feedback loop boundary of complexity of a situation as one criterion for identifying  when expertise is likely to be successful or not

In these situations,  we find consistently  wrong answers come from ' patterns of thought, even habits of mind, [that] are predictive of results.' The problem is the patterns of thought  and habits of mind continue to work for us and predict incorrectly whilst at the same time we feel like we have made successful predictions - and  we don't realise the predictions are consistently wrong. 

A challenge for all fields of design is to create new forms of theories  and practices and tools  that enable designers to  use them  to go beyond the limitations intrinsic in human thinking, feeling and creativity as regards predicting  in the above situations.

The above implies two activities for a Theory of Design Thinking to represent: a) The processes by which designers can identify when their thinking is insufficient or mistaken and there is a need to use external tools and (this is the important bit), when the internal responses within the designer mistakenly tell them that they are successfully and thinking correctly, and;  b) the processes by which designers can integrate their thinking about designs with the information from tools (that predict better than the designer), when the information from the tools contradicts the internal experiences and thinking of the designer.

It may be the Theory of Design Thinking already does this? If so, could you please explain more as I haven't managed to get it yet.

** Forrester, J (1971) Counterintuitive behaviour of social systems available http://constitution.org/ps/cbss.pdf  
The contents of the article have been reworked over time.  As it says in the article, it was first copyrighted © 1971 by Jay W. Forrester.  It is based on testimony for the Subcommittee on Urban Growth of the Committee on Banking and Currency, U.S. House of Representatives, on October 7, 1970.  The original text appeared in the January, 1971, issue of the Technology Review published by the Alumni Association of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  All figures are taken from World Dynamics by Jay W. Forrester, Pegasus Communications, Waltham MA.  Updated March, 1995
See also the short Wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterintuitive_Behavior_of_Social_Systems 

Warm regards,
Terry

-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of CHARLES BURNETTE
Sent: Tuesday, 23 February 2016 7:01 AM
To: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Assume fixed number of colours in design?

Terry, I’m choosing to leave this dialog in the color string because that is the context of whatever theory we are seeking.
 
In my world, and in other situations where there are many possible outcomes rather than narrowly constrained ones, a theory does not have to be predictive. It must be a useful, meaningful, and appropriate construct through which relevant information can be structured and transformed to accomplish a purpose regarding the circumstances of interest or concern. At some point in its development and use, after enough examples of its use exist, such a theory can become predictive of the behavior and circumstances that produced similar outcomes in similar circumstances. It may also enable discovery of similar outcomes in different circumstances or for different purposes. American Philosopher Daniel Dennett’s conception of Intentional Stances, claims predictive capabilities but I don’t have enough knowledge of his reasoning to describe it here. I imagine it is predictive of failure or success in achieving an objective under certain conditions, including after professional expertise has become operative. Prediction of what change a particular design will bring to the world defies the capacity to adequately isolate the “world" being changed. Happily, scientific prediction is not the only game in town. Many patterns of thought, even habits of mind, are predictive of results. Otherwise there would be no expertise.

Or, so I think
Chuck

> On Feb 20, 2016, at 12:00 PM, Terence Love <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
> Hi Chuck,
> 
> Thanks for your message.
> 
> I'm unclear how what you wrote  affects the ability or otherwise  of theories to predict what changes in the world will result from the introduction of a particular design.
> 
> Please could you say more.
> 
> Warm regards,
> Terry
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [log in to unmask] 
> <mailto:[log in to unmask]> 
> [mailto:[log in to unmask] 
> <mailto:[log in to unmask]>] On Behalf Of CHARLES 
> BURNETTE
> Sent: Saturday, 20 February 2016 10:23 PM
> To: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and 
> related research in Design <[log in to unmask] 
> <mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
> Subject: Re: Assume fixed number of colours in design?
> 
> Dear colleagues,
> 
> In my view, interpretations are valid formulations due to their backgound, context, and intention. A Theory of Design Thinking suggests that an expression of any focal subject depends on the context in which it was formulated, the interpretation arising from the thinker's background, and the needs and desires that focus the expression. The theory also suggests that the choice of identifier for a color, or anything else, gives a functional boundary to the neural network in the brain sufficient to establish the expression as an object of thought that can be memorialized, recalled, adapted, and applied in subsequent thought, either subconsciously with a malleable boundary, or consciously through linguistic devices with less potential ambiguity. The potential ambiguity is thought to reside in the salience of different neuron groups in the context of the neural net. This would give subconscious imagination a greater range and linguistic definition greater precision. Just as the Color Council seeks to identify a trending color and paint manufacturer's seek a better understanding of the colors of their paint any identifier of utility in subsequent thought needs to be considered in terms of its circumstances of use, background influences and the thinkers intent. So hereTerry, is some design theory on terms you, Eduardo, Gunnar and others  might accept.
> 
> Or, so I hope you will,
> 
> Chuck



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