I agree with the bulk of tom's responses, but Stephen...
> Space syntax (or the axmap at any rate) is actually _doing_ something
reminds me of the contemporary criticism of Newton because he proposed an
invisible force. Since the mindset held that there should be a mechanistic
'cause' the invisibility of a force meant that Newton was a lunatic. Even a
cursory reading of Newton himself shows that when talking of gravity there
was nothing mechanistic or mystical about his thesis - it's a purely
empirical set of observations accounted for by a formula that describes the
observed regularity. That formula comprises a description of the world of
the phenomena themselves - not the phenomena 'as known' or the phenomena
'as observed' or any other subjectivist formulation. This is really all I'm
holding out for so far as syntax is concerned.
Yes, 'psychology in space' and 'social in space' are fundamental to our
interpretation of mechanisms in our field. But the basis of it all lies in
the 'spatial in space' - the basic maths of what you can do with space -
which is presocial and prepsychological, and I would argue a necessary
precursor to any rational theory of a role for space in either. Space must
be structured in itself for people to 'know' it or for society to take
advantage of it. All I'm saying is that it is the underlaying structure -
the 'spatial in space' - which the 'axmap' describes. And describe/quantify
is all it does. It does not 'model' if by modelling you mean a mechanistic
construction of somthing that 'behaves' the same way as the real world
phenomenon in question. This is where the syntax approach is fundamentally
different to that of conventional urban or traffic models. It does not
propose a mechanism which is built into a model, it represents and
quantifies and finds regularities and correlations - these are the
'phenomena'. We may theorise about possible mechanisms to account for those
regularities and those theories often invoke social, perceptual or
cognitive notions, but space has its own independent laws which would exist
even if people didnt. In this sense syntax is analytic.
As an aside, we do also build models and simulations to test hypotheses
about how things might 'work' at the mechanistic end of the spectrum - but
dont tend to label these as 'syntax' although they do contribute to the
social and cognative theories that are developed. We also do
'microstructure of behaviour' observations to look for behavioural
mechanisms that might account for the aggregate patterns that we find at
the population level.
As for Lacan, I assume that Stephen is thinking of the work relating
topolgy to psychoanalysis. Anyone considering taking this thesis seriously
should first read Sokal and Bricmont, Intellectual Impostors: postmodern
philosopher's abuse of science, Profile Books, London (1998). Just as a
taster I quote one of their quote's from Lacan:
"Thus by calculating signification according to the algebraic method used
here, namely
S (signifier)
------------- = s (the statement)
s (signified)
with S=(-1), produces s=ˆ-1 " (Lacan 1977)
(yes he uses small s's to denote two different things - and the funny
character for those without Macs is a square root sign. ap)
Using examples such as this Sokal and Bricmont effectively demolish any
notion that Lacan has the faintest notion of what topology or even what
basic algebra and maths is about, let alone a contribution to make to
bringing topology and psychology together. Its a good read and I would say
essential for anyone with postmodernist leanings :o)
Alan
>
>You're right its a bit chicken and egg - and arguments about how interior
>or exterior these things are all get very silly though the philosophers
>would no doubt go for it. But there's something else - Space syntax (or the
>axmap at any rate) is actually _doing_ something as I see it - its
>modelling something thats actually going on in urban space - and what that
>is has a great bearing on the kind of questions Tom Dine is asking - and I
>think its a bit disingenuous to act as though the axial map is just
>revealing pure (spatial) structure in terms of 'depth' and 'integration'
>and that sort of thing - and that this structure then has social
>implications. The spatial doesn't 'know' anything of course, the spatial
>structure that we are playing with is a mapping of an already apparent
>process which is social-in-space or psychological-in-space. As I said this
>is a speculation, but its not one I'm going to give up in principle though
>I'm quite prepared to concede details. When we map social patterns to the
>structure revealed by the axmap we are not mapping pure social onto pure
>spatial, we're mapping social-spatial to another social- or
>psychological-spatial. As I say I haven't thought too much about convexity,
>but axiality is as far as I can guess about 'place' and the way it is
>forged together with other places in a dilectical unity - through the
>spatialisation of movement (and knowing??). At this scale and on the
>street, all those other processes are probably slave to the process that
>gets us around the city. I don't think we can answer all of Tom Dine's
>questions without getting into psycho-spatial-analysis - and maybe
>Bachelard and Lacan and the phenomenologists can help with some aspects of
>the subjective response to space, but we need to know where we can help -
>and I think that we can help with place and its outward aspects, because
>the axmap has locked into its 'phatic' character, and the way it conjugates
>with other places to structure larger wholes. I think it probably happens
>at smaller scales as well. It gets back to one of my earliest points in
>this series of exchanges - that people need to be able to understand what
>space syntax is doing as a (latent) theory of the city rather than just as
>a technique for prising regularities out of space. Otherwise they're going
>to keep on asking - yes, but what _is_ it actually??
>
>
>Stephen
>
>
>>I suspect that we are probably saying the same thing, and that this could
>>be seen as an academic 'chicken and egg' argument. Which comes first,
>>spatial structures (millions of them) or the structures of "doing or
>>'knowing'"? I think that space and its mathematical logic comes first.
>>Lines of sight and minimising depth in axial maps no doubt have social
>>implications, as do the notions of convexity, however the only processes I
>>can concieve of that lead to those being 'knowable' run from the ability of
>>the human mind to 'read' these sort of structures and turn them to use. A
>>bit like seeing faces in clouds - humans are quite good at that kind of
>>thing. In my view the 'logical' structures of space come first, ie: there
>>has to be somthing there to 'know'. If we try and argue the reverse, we are
>>left proposing that the logical structures of space are somehow responsive
>>to ('aware of'?? clearly absurd) what humans can know. This may be argued
>>(in a weak version) by those that say that space is 'social' purely in so
>>far as it is a product of social and ecomomic forces, but in principle the
>>argument seems to me to be illogical and fundamentally wrong. It is just a
>>fallacy put about by those that seek to distinguish humans and the human
>>mind from everything else in nature.
>>
________________________________________________
Alan Penn
Director, VR Centre for the Built Environment
The Bartlett School of Architecture and Planning
1-19 Torrington Place (Room 335)
University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT
tel. (+44) (0)171 387 7050 ext 5919 fax. (+44) (0)171 916 1887
mobile. (+44) (0)411 696875
email. [log in to unmask]
www. http://www.vr.ucl.ac.uk/
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