Hi Ken,
Thank you for your message(s)
Quick reply - in part.
You wrote,
' The other day, you asked for an answer based on etymology and definitions from a responsible reference to show why machines can’t undertake these activities in the same sense that human beings can. I spent much of two days doing a careful review of etymology, definitions, meanings, and exemplars from the Oxford English Dictionary. You never answered.'
My apologies. I'm writing an answer but it's not yet finished. The short form is 'Thank you very much - useful, but I disagree ' - and my disagreement you would probably see as flexible equivocation.
Other things and other posts took priority.
I'm in the middle of writing and delivering a couple of substantial courses and writing the books that accompany them with everything to a deadline. Last week, it suddenly became necessary to rebuild the online learning servers and the software updates conflicted with the existing 10 years' worth of content... There is only one of me to design the systems, code them, design the curricula, teaching content and assessments and do the teaching and make the videos etc. It’s a good job the current systems do most of the design work for me.
I'll reply more fully soon.
Warm regards,
Terry
==
Dr Terence Love
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-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Ken Friedman
Sent: Thursday, 9 July 2020 4:55 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: The uselessness of 'agency' in design theory
Dear Terry,
Your replies and comments in this conversation make it difficult to respond. You’ve changed the levels of analysis and the units of analysis several times. You also use the same words in several different ways.
Rather than define carefully what you mean by the words you use — “decide,” “create,” “make,” “design,” or “plan” — you equivocate, using the same words in several different ways. Equivocal language involves words or statements in which the terms are open to at least two interpretations, often more. Equivocation is usually used to mislead or confuse. This may not be your intent, but even if you don’t intend to mislead or confuse, that’s the result. Equivocation allows you to avoid commitment to any clear meaning.
The other day, you asked for an answer based on etymology and definitions from a responsible reference to show why machines can’t undertake these activities in the same sense that human beings can. I spent much of two days doing a careful review of etymology, definitions, meanings, and exemplars from the Oxford English Dictionary. You never answered. Instead, you push forward using the words you choose in whatever sense suits your current argument.
This conversation began with an interesting question from Ella Dagan. You have managed to hijack and monopolise a reasonable discussion. On July 4, Nigel wrote, “Once again Terence Love has high-jacked and diverted a topic onto his own particular views and opinions using a rhetorical device of suggesting ‘a different way of thinking about design and design research’ - i.e. ‘let me move this onto my preferred topic and views’. He then goes on to make statements that are naive or simply and sometimes absurdly not true.”
The late Victor Margolin discussed your contributions to the Ph-Design list in much the same way. On April 19, 2015, Victor wrote, “... I think you would be doing everyone on the list a favor by choosing your topics more responsibly and not acting out a perverse contrarian position that is frequently lacking the substantial background to give it sufficient credence”
Your response to Nigel was a weird mash-up of comments ending in the conclusion that most everyone other you has been “behind rather than in front of the game.”
Anyone with a real contribution to make to engineering, computing, automation — or even design research — should be publishing his own research rather than using so many words to inform us that we are “behind rather than in front of the game.”
Aside from keeping the streets safe from the likes of Nigel Cross, my problem with your contributions to this conversation is that you have never clearly stated the basis for your claim that machines decide, create, make, design, or plan much as human beings do.
Instead, you take this as the premise of your argument. From this premise, you come to conclusions that are reasonable IF AND ONLY IF your premises are valid.
This is circular reasoning.
To do this, you spin and pirouette using equivocal terms. You also respond to fragmented and bracketed subsets of the conversation while ignoring the central issues that people discuss. In your reply to Joao Feirrera, for example, you ignored the key design activities and decisions to discuss minor automated functions of the machines that the designers used for minor tasks. Joao specifically stated the crucial high-level choices and decisions.
On July 4, I stated that most of us agree that many subsidiary design activities have been automated. These are different to the crucial activities that require setting goals and making decisions. These are a major part of the design process that precede design activities. This is the matter of choosing the preferred futures toward which we design, or even inventing the unknown future as we design it. There is also the matter of choosing among alternatives. At many moments in the design process, designers must decide among alternate questions or solutions as they move toward higher level goals. Many design processes contain thousands of tiny moments. These include minute details of many kinds.
You ignored all those issues. Instead, you gave Joao the example of process steps that take place as routines and sub-routines. Both human beings and mechanised systems undertake routines and sub-routines. Most of these routines and sub-routines do not require decisions. Even where they do require decisions, however, many kinds of decisions are automated based on the algorithms designed by human beings and learning sets or preferences determined by human beings. Here, as elsewhere in the conversation, you confuse and conflate levels of analysis.
One of my colleagues from the Norwegian School of Economics used to describe responsible researchers as “research grown-ups.” By this, he referred to people who take their own arguments seriously enough to argue responsibly. He also meant people who treat debate seriously enough to address the questions and arguments of other people in a responsible and serious way. Equivocation and sophistry are not the behaviour one expects of a research grown-up.
I’d prefer a list where you did not hijack the discussions quite so often. Even if the rest of us don’t understand your “different way of thinking about design and design research,” there are reasonable ways to argue your case.
Ken
Ken Friedman, Ph.D., D.Sc. (hc), FDRS | Editor-in-Chief | 设计 She Ji. The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation | Published by Tongji University in Cooperation with Elsevier | URL: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/she-ji-the-journal-of-design-economics-and-innovation/ <http://www.journals.elsevier.com/she-ji-the-journal-of-design-economics-and-innovation/>
Chair Professor of Design Innovation Studies | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| Eminent Scholar | College of Design, Art, Architecture, and Planning | University of Cincinnati ||| Email [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> | Academia https://tongji.academia.edu/KenFriedman <https://tongji.academia.edu/KenFriedman> | D&I http://tjdi.tongji.edu.cn <http://tjdi.tongji.edu.cn/>
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