Filippo,
I should have been clearer, I was referring to "natural" behaviour, following Jinan's last post, not to natural objects. I purposely used "not natural" as its counterpart, instead of artificial, hoping to avoid this confusion. I realise my adaptation of the thread title may have been a little misleading.
Following up to my previous post, I think the division between "natural" (e.g. kids jumping on the sofa) and "not natural" (e.g. kids sitting still, even without being told to do so) is arbitrary and therefore artificial, and used to cover up (moral) opinions as facts. To my ears it echoes labelling behaviour as being "normal" (i.e. desirable because I like it) and "not normal" (i.e. not desirable because I don't like it) as favoured by populist (wannabe) politicians. The same goes for "the right path" and Jinan's "wrong path". This is the sort of discussion even the best debater is not likely to win, because it is void of any argument. I like it when people just say what they like, as Jinan does, but I don't think presenting moral opinions as a facts is a very solid basis for scientific arguments. I feel I'm repeating myself, so I'll stop here.
Have a good weekend!
Melle
melle zijlstra (phd researcher | university of bath | department of computer science)
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On 15/07/2016 17:02, Filippo Salustri wrote:
Without wanting to seem like I'm trying to derail the discussion with
Lubomir, I would respectfully offer the following comments.
On 15 July 2016 at 10:48, Melle Zijlstra <[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Let me start my answer by adding some questions. What is the relevance to
design, of an answer to the question if something is "natural"? Is
"natural" better or worse than "not natural"? And why?
Even though several species of non-human animals have demonstrated at least
the rudiments of some of the cognitive processes that humans use to design
things, there's no evidence (yet) that non-human animals design things - in
any reasonable sense of "design" - and pretty good evidence that they
*can't* design. The real difference, as I see it, between natural design
and artificial design isn't in the designing, but in the results. Natural
objects - objects that were not designed - appear and behave/react
substantively different from artificial objects. Those differences seem to
cause in humans both visceral and conscious reactions that we interpret as
natural objects being somehow "better" than artificial ones. The real
question, I think, is to understand more about the cognitive and
external-physical phenomena that underlie these reactions. Such an
understanding will help us understand ourselves when we design as well as
when we used designed things.
I absolutely agree with you that the answers depend on the paradigmatic
bias of the discussants, moreover, I think the answers are mere opinions,
programmatic statements, and therefore false arguments when referred to as
a "facts". The argument of something being "natural" has been proven to be
quite powerful in marketing design and ideas about design, see for example
the legacy of the idea that (a particular sort of) "form follows function".
Another obvious example is architecture, e.g. Frank Lloyd Wright's
Fallingwater, "naturally blending with nature". I can argue that is does
and I can argue for the opposite. It doesn't matter though, all that
matters is if I like it or not.
They're not *all* "mere opinions." While there is always a ground in past
experience, it *is* possible to create a partial order of those answers
such that we can with confidence say some answers are more robust, more
reliable, more accurate, more useful, more [etc] than others.
It's also important to remember that every concept, no matter how
meaningful it can be, can also be co-opted by others for... questionable
purposes. So just because some marketing organizations, for instance, have
made great hay from naive and even incorrect use of the term "natural,"
this is not to say that anything labelled "natural" is of questionable
merit.
Melle wrote: "...all that matters is if I like it or not."
Certainly this is true. But we don't have to just stop there. We can study
why you (or others) like a thing or not. We can trace those explanations
back with ever greater precision as time goes on. What one likes is deeply
connected to what one has experienced in the past. This doesn't sully the
notion of liking a thing; it does however give us the potential to create
more things that you'll like, as well as changing the settings in which we
receive future experiences so that we can change our likes (and dislikes)
for reasons that can understand and accept as beneficial.
\V/_ /fas
*Prof. Filippo A. Salustri, Ph.D., P.Eng.*
Email: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Web: http://deseng.ryerson.ca/~fil/
ORCID: 0000-0002-3689-5112 <http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3689-5112><http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3689-5112>
"Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana."
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