I was today made aware about an interesting text about complexity (thanks Abiel Tomás Parra Hernández for the pointer). The article has the title "Why this will be the Century of Complexity..." written by Kieran D. Kelly. The article is mostly aimed at the world of physics and how that discipline has and is changing in relation to the growing understanding of complex phenomena. To what extent the article correctly describes physics and its development is not something I can determine, but, the article makes some interesting observations that can be relevant to the philosophy and theory of designing.
In the article Kelly argues that complexity and chaos is something natural and something that we have to live with and that can't be reduced to traditional thinking based on some fundamental ideas of stability. Anyway, if this is interesting from a scientific perspective I don't know and for the purpose of my post, I don't care. Instead, what is interesting to me are some of the definitions that Kelly examines. For instance, he defines chaos as “adaptive instability” and as “unresolved internal adaptation to feedback, surfacing as turbulent diversity on the system level”. And he writes that "Natural Chaos is Incompressible Adaptive Diversity".
When I read these definitions they fit quite well into some advanced ideas about designing as a process of intentional change struggling with unpredictability. To try to intentionally design while dealing with "constantly changing feedback" in a context of emerging complex systems is an overwhelming task. And this is only on the side of designing that tries to understand the context and conditions within which the design is supposed to make a difference. We have a similar complexity on the side of intentionality, or desiderata, that is, on the side of the purpose and goal of a design. What all involved want or desire from a design is equally influenced by complexity, feedback and emergence.
So, is intentional design even possible? Of course it is, we see examples of wonderful intentional designs in the most complex contexts and conditions. But we also see a lot of examples of failed designs. Designing is not easy. It demands a designerly mind that is able to understand how to approach and deal with the complexity and richness of reality through the use of design wisdom and design judgment. It will never be possible to fully examine and understand reality for designerly purposes in a way that reduces the need for a designerly judgment. A designer judgment is needed to cut through the overwhelming but insufficient information about the reality that we can produce with all our approaches and methods. A designer judgment is need to find out what the desiderata is, that is, what is the desire and purpose with a design. Desiderata is not a consequence of reality, of any complex and emergent contexts, or deeper understanding of the underlying mechanisms of reality. Desiderata can only be established by designers in conspiracy with all stakeholders based on their desires, wants and needs. Ok, enough for now...
In the article Kelly argues that complexity and chaos is something natural and something that we have to live with and that can't be reduced to traditional thinking based on some fundamental ideas of stability. Anyway, if this is interesting from a scientific perspective I don't know and for the purpose of my post, I don't care. Instead, what is interesting to me are some of the definitions that Kelly examines. For instance, he defines chaos as “adaptive instability” and as “unresolved internal adaptation to feedback, surfacing as turbulent diversity on the system level”. And he writes that "Natural Chaos is Incompressible Adaptive Diversity".
When I read these definitions they fit quite well into some advanced ideas about designing as a process of intentional change struggling with unpredictability. To try to intentionally design while dealing with "constantly changing feedback" in a context of emerging complex systems is an overwhelming task. And this is only on the side of designing that tries to understand the context and conditions within which the design is supposed to make a difference. We have a similar complexity on the side of intentionality, or desiderata, that is, on the side of the purpose and goal of a design. What all involved want or desire from a design is equally influenced by complexity, feedback and emergence.
So, is intentional design even possible? Of course it is, we see examples of wonderful intentional designs in the most complex contexts and conditions. But we also see a lot of examples of failed designs. Designing is not easy. It demands a designerly mind that is able to understand how to approach and deal with the complexity and richness of reality through the use of design wisdom and design judgment. It will never be possible to fully examine and understand reality for designerly purposes in a way that reduces the need for a designerly judgment. A designer judgment is needed to cut through the overwhelming but insufficient information about the reality that we can produce with all our approaches and methods. A designer judgment is need to find out what the desiderata is, that is, what is the desire and purpose with a design. Desiderata is not a consequence of reality, of any complex and emergent contexts, or deeper understanding of the underlying mechanisms of reality. Desiderata can only be established by designers in conspiracy with all stakeholders based on their desires, wants and needs. Ok, enough for now...
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