Hi Terry,
I am going your way, a kind of. The nature of the concept is the key to this conversation. The second important issue is the field of application. The third important issue is the heuristic potential of the concept for solving particular problems in that field.
Swapping concepts among disciplines and paradigm might be possible, but it has its own limitations and most important, risks of going into a cul-de-sac. Swapping concepts as analogies or metaphors is OK, as long as people to not take them at face value. In the last two decades, with the spread of Deconstructivist discourses we see too many cases when metaphors are taken at face value; old staff is "rebranded" as new; and all kinds of improbable things are touted as innovation. It might be a reaction against the rigidity of Rationalism and Positivism. A kind of a Harry Potter effect. By now, the Harry Potter kids have become assistant professors and they live in their multiple realities, teach multiple realities, and insist that this wonderful world that they have created in their imagination is real.
It is normal for people to explore different fields and search for innovative views. However, there are risks and someone has to pay the bill. So, this is up to the dissertator.
As a social scientist, bending towards cultural studies (I put this hat now, for this conversation), I am really frustrated with the attempts to bring concepts from physics and biological disciplines into the realm of human use of artefacts. It is normal for AI people to use such concepts. After all, contemporary computers are analogues of the primitive organisms. So, let's learn from nature. We cannot model yet human intelligence, but swarm intelligence is within our reach. Why not use it as a step forward. The Internet of Things is based on stigmergical phenomena rather than on human intelligence. I mean, until the humankind learns how to model human decision-making in its full capacity. And if this is possible at all before we move from mechanical engineering to bioengineering. I think the AI people are too much enthusiastic and too much hyped with their current successes. From a Historical Materialist point of view AI is far away from human intelligence. Positivists and in particular the neuroscientists will disagree with me.
Bottom line. I agree with the colleagues that spoke before me on several issues:
-- A dissertation should be not only a training ground, abut should make a substantial contribution. Once the dissertators become assistant professors, they would not have a good chance to contribute more.
-- It is very risky to get into a completely new area. Some people become gurus in that new field, but most people fail and we never hear about them.
-- If a person finds a niche and a job, someday this person will get a career award. Or many career awards like Don. But if at the time of graduation no one cares about this new domain, if there is no demand for such knowledge and skills, this person is done. I can tell you about tens of such dissertators. I have traced the career trajectories of tens of dissertators (may be a few hundreds).
-- The real creativity and the real contribution is when a person starts in an established field and changes it.
-- If a person starts in and established field, there are more job opportunities regarding teaching and even research. There is more attrition, more job openings, and stochastically, there are always jobs. In a new domain, there might be only five jobs in the U.S.A. And there might be 25 Ph.D.s and Post-Docs.
-- One advice to dissertators: Your fist job will be teaching. Chances for a research position are very small, even after your post-doc. In this situation, you have to show what courses you have taught and are able to teach. The employers need people for everything they don't want to teach: Building Systems, History of Design, and Fundamentals of Design (just an example).
About Don's advice: My appreciation Don. About my advice: I think it can help people get on the bandwagon and then try to fly high.
Best wishes,
Lubomir
-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Terence Love
Sent: Saturday, March 18, 2017 10:12 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Stigmergy in [Design] Education(?)
Dear Fernando, Ken, Don and all,
Good to see the exploration of PhD research aimed at improving design education.
What has been missing from the discourse is a critical review of the idea of stigmergy itself.
It is easy to point to the apparent origins of the concept of stigmergy in entomology and its take up in systems science, AI, computer science, engineering design and other fields.
That doesn't, however, critique its utility or validity as a concept.
Firstly, stigmergy was originally incorrectly classified as being from entomology. In fact, it's origins were in ethology - with the ethological studies in which it was devised being undertaken in relation to insects.
Second, at first glance it is an incredibly useful concept in relation to design theory because it provides an overarching concept within which fits semiotics, meaning making and sensemaking in design theory and practice.
How so? The crucial dimension that stigmergy brings is the pathway:
'action/activity/behaviour'
--> results in a physical amendment to the local environment (a
sign/stigma)
--> results in 'action/activity/behaviour'
(the definition of stigmergy)
Note that the primary dimension of stigmergy is of action. This contrasts with the primary dimension of semiotics/meaning-making/sense-making being understanding, after which it is hoped that by some additional external process this understanding results in action/behaviours. So, semiotics/meaning-making/sense-making are subsumed within stigmergy offering part of the explanation of it.
Third, the idea of stigmergy is intrinsically limited both in theory and practice. Strongly implicit in its ethological/entological use ( and by extension its use in other disciplines) - and unhelpfully not included in its definition- are two bounding epistemological and practical constraints.
The first bounding limitation is that the activity that results in the sign/stigma being left in the environment is the same kind of activity that is subsequently affected by the sign/stigma. The second limitation is that the effect of the sign/stigma is to provide positive reinforcement of that activity in ways that make it more successful. For example, insects searching in an environment leaves pheromones that result in improvements to the outcome of search activities of all. In essence the role of stigmergy in its traditional formulation is limited to it being a positive feedback activity.
On the positive side, the activity-based essence of the concept of stigmergy offers a great and useful extension to design theory and practice in terms of extending the analysis of the role of signs (and meaning-making, sense-making, semiotics and rhetoric).
On the negative side, the assumption about the same kind of activity before and after the sign/stigma process, and the requirement that its purpose is positive improvement strictly limit the applicability of the concept more widely.
What is needed to be applicable more widely is a concept similar to stigmergy that allows that the sign/stigma may have a variety of positive or negative effects on activities, and that the activity creating the sign may be different to the activity(ies) that change as a result of the sign.
Think (say ) of advertising design in which a design activity results in a sign (the advertisement) that results in the activity of people buying stuff.
That raises the fourth problem. The applicability of such a concept is potentially too wide and too applicable to too many aspects of life. For example, every design activity has that structure, as does every activity in the realms of analysis, research, politics, governance, management, caring, law, sport.....
In a different direction this also points to a response to Ken's concern that concepts from one field should not be used in another. In this case, that the concept of stigmergy (apparently from entomology) should not be used in design education unless fully tested there.
My observation from working in many different disciplines is that the same concepts (in their abstract form) are found across all disciplines. The match is not complete - some disciplines are relatively concept rich and others are concept sparse. Some disciplines have a concept mix that is biased in this or that way. This is not surprising as humans are humans and think the same way regardless of discipline due to biological necessity.
This is easy to test, and its over 30 years since I first did so. The method is to write out the structural nature of concepts in mathematical form - a straightforward activity. Then it is possible to identify a list of the concept structures used in each discipline. There are less than 50 concept structures that together cover the main concepts used in most disciplines.
As a simple example, think of the concept of 'equals' or 'balance' and how widely that is used in all disciplines. Similarly, the idea of an activity resulting in a frame shift into another realm that itself influences an activity is similarly extensively found across disciplines.
I suggest the problem of using stigmergy in educational research aimed at improving design education is more that it's a dud over-constrained concept in its traditional form rather than it being problematic because it is from another discipline.
Two penneth,
Best wishes,
Terry
==
Dr Terence Love
FDRS, AMIMechE, PMACM, MISI, MAISA
Director
Design Out Crime & CPTED Centre
Perth, Western Australia
[log in to unmask]
www.designoutcrime.org
+61 (0)4 3497 5848
==
ORCID 0000-0002-2436-7566
-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask]
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Fernando Mendes
Sent: Wednesday, 15 March 2017 12:22 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Stigmergy in [Design] Education(?)
Hi List,
Anyone familiar with the term Stigmergy, specifically related to [Design] Education?
I am a PhD candidate investigating [design] learning patterns in coworking spaces with evidences of stigmergic phenomena.
Best,
***********************
Fernando Mendes
# IADE / UNIDCOM / IDEAS(R)EVOLUTION Researcher Assistant Professor / Ph.D Student Laureate Universities
> www.coworklisboa.pt [founder]
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