Dear Kari-Hans,
I would like to raise some concerns about your appeal to
Dennett, and his book Darwin's Dangerous Idea (1995), as
support for the good sense you see in the idea of treating
biological evolution as a (non-intentional) designer: as a
creator of designs, as you would put it, if I understand you
correctly.
Daniel Dennett is, as I assume you know, a well established
and widely respected philosopher. A powerful one, in many
people's eyes. He has been active, in a supportive way--as
opposed to the more usual critical way--in the fields of
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Artificial Life (AL). He is
thus appreciated by non-philosophers working in these two
areas, who have benefitted from and used his philosophising,
including me. I have done work in both AI and AL. And I know
and have engaged with Daniel Dennett in these (professional)
contexts.
Dennett is not, however, an authority on designing, nor on
what is a design, and what you can reasonably say when you
call something a design. Nor is he a philosopher of design.
So, presenting him as a good "supporting reference" for your
views, is, I would say, a poor move. If you need support for
your position, I think you need it from people who are
recognised authorities in relevant areas--well established
design researchers, design thinkers and practitioners, and,
perhaps, real philosophers of design.
For me, quoting from Dennett's book Darwin's Dangerous Idea,
makes things worse, a lot worse. Of all Dennett's books, this
one more than any display's his tendency towards an arrogant
and bullying treatment of other people's work and ideas. This
book generated much controversy and heated debate, especially
between Dennett and Stephen Jay Gould--who Dennett somewhat
viciously attacks in this book.
This all happed more than a decade ago, and was a long and
detailed debate, but for a useful concluding summary of the
positions, this New York Review of Books exchange is a good
place to start
‘Darwinian Fundamentalism’: An Exchange
AUGUST 14, 1997
Daniel C. Dennett, reply by Stephen Jay Gould
<http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1997/aug/14/darwinian-fundamentalism-an-exchange/?pagination=false>
To help with some background and context, I think this next
piece by Gould, also from the New York Review of Books,
published in June 1997, shortly before the above, helps to
show that Gould was in no way anti-Darwin. Indeed, I, like
many people, saw Gould as one of the most thoughtful and
eloquent explainers and defenders of Darwin's idea. Gould,
like Darwin, just didn't think that adaptation by selection of
the fittest accounts for all the variety we see in the
biological world. A position that has been and is shared by
others in evolutionary biology. In other words, Dennett held
the more restricted and dogmatic position in this debate--and
still does, as far as I know. Gould died in 2002. But do
have a read of this.
Darwinian Fundamentalism
JUNE 12, 1997
Stephen Jay Gould
<http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1997/jun/12/darwinian-fundamentalism/?pagination=false>
Allow me, if you will, to illustrate why I think Dennett's
thinking is wrong on designing and what a design is, with just
one example, taken from your quotation.
Dennett, takes a Design Stance on what Darwinian Evolution
gives rise to: individual living things that can each be
identified as an instance of particular species. He sees and
treats the instances of living things as if they are
realisations of designs, and then talks of these designs.
This involves re-seeing each one as an abstract description of
what it is, and not of what it actually is; an individual
instances of a living thing of same species. (Note, by the
way, that Dennett is not clear if what he means by the design
here, is the species design, or the individual animal design.
They would not be identical. I take it that he means the
species design, since it's hard to make much sense of what he
writes if you don't. But the unclarity remains.)
As Ken, said, Jukka, at the end of his post, identifies the
importance and widespread use of this Design Stance idea, when
he said
"All in all, it is an old research strategy in natural
sciences to look at systems as if they were well-designed,
and then use design aesthetics like simplicity or elegance
to guide hypotheses of what and why."
Seeing and treating things as if they are designs, and not the
things they actually are--is useful, very useful, and a valid
way to develop ideas and understandings, if done well.
But, taking a Design Stance, seeing and treating something as
if it is the outcome of some designing, does not make that
something a design, nor make it an outcome of any kind of
designing. Adopting a Design Stance is an observer choice
that changes nothing of the thing so observed. A thing is a
thing, and only and no more than the thing, and only a
realisation of a design if it has in fact resulted from some
designing and subsequent realisation following well the
design.
Things go wrong when we have what Dennett does, here in your
quote: take, apparently unknowingly, a Design Stance, and then
go on to make some very silly and wrong claims and statements,
such as
"... Darwin had hit upon what we might call the Principle
of Accumulation of Design."
No such a notion, expressed in any shape or form, appears
anywhere in Darwin's writings--and there is a lot of it. But
almost all of it now available on the web, so you may check
this assertion of mine. Or ask some authorities on Darwin and
his works. This Dennett notion of the Principle of
Accumulation of Design, is a product of his Design Stance--but
not a good one, I happen to think, and not a part of Darwin's
thinking or developments. Darwin didn't adopt a Design Stance
in his work. I'm not even sure it has been invented then.
Perhaps someone here can help with this question of design
history.
Dennett, to give him some credit, does--in the next sentence
from your quote--gives away his Design Stance by saying
"Things in the world (such as watches and organisms and who
knows what else) may be seen as products embodying a
certain amount of Design[ing] ..."
But, he then continues, in the same sentence, to commit the
Design Stance over claim that you seem to want to make
"... and one way or another, that Design[ing] had to have
been created by a process of R and D."
Where here, "R and D," for Dennett, equates to designing, at
least in this quote, but I think it carries the same meaning
elsewhere too.
So, in one sentence we have Dennett, in this case, slipping
unnoticed by him, and probably unnoticed by many of his
readers, from a thing that may be seen as a design to being
necessarily designed, R and D'd, to use his exact term. This
is not a reasonable step to take, I think, because it simply
is not true: nothing in the biology of this world has been
designed, not in any sense of designing that we have and use
today. Saying that these things have been designed, because
you like the idea thinking they have been, is not a reasonable
way to extend our current notions of what designing is.
Understanding what designing is, requires good and extensive
empirical study. Understanding what designing can be requires
the development of good explanatory theory or theories.
To end, let me restate my position in this discussion. An
agent, like Dennett, or you, or me, or anybody else, can
freely and reasonable chose to adopt a Design Stance so as to
view a thing as a design--to "read" the object, or animal, as
a presentation of the design it is a particular realisation
of. (Which is quite a sophisticated way of viewing things in
the world, so it's not just any old agent that is able to do
this.)
What, in my view, is not reasonable, is to then say that the
thing so viewed is a design and that it was thus designed.
So, my question remains, given that we may reasonably adopt a
Design Stance towards anything and everything in the Universe,
what does looking at all these things and seeing them as if
they are realisations of designs, do for a better
understanding of intentional professional designing?
Best regards,
Tim
====================================================
On Apr 5, 2013, at 16:58 , Kommonen Kari-Hans wrote:
> Dear Ken,
>
> Thanks for a thoughtful post!
<snip>
-----------------------------------------------------------------
PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]>
Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|
