Re: Human design and natural "design"

Perplexed in Peoria wrote:
> "Michael Nuwer" <StopSpam@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:deq9vi$1geg$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>>But the point that I believe is significant is this: It seems to me that
>>although _individual_ humans have the ability to design things as a
>>consequence of the capacity for conceptual thinking, it is not at all
>>clear that this ability extends to a group or collective entity -- at
>>least not in any straightforward, additive way.
>
>
> Interesting point. Earlier in this topic, I briefly discussed several
> methodologies for the design of computer software. The most recently
> popular of these methodologies - iterative design - quite explicitly
> is based upon the notion of design as a group activity. And it definitely
> does not involve any attempts to produce designs that are more creative
> or brilliant that could be produced by an individual. Instead, it
> tries to produce designs that are a bit bigger, more robust, and
> marred by fewer subtle flaws than an individualist design.
>
>


Yes, I saw your comments. Similar discussions are being held in parts of
the social sciences regarding economic and political organization (like
the relationships among business firms and the methods of government
regulation). An advantage of the iterative process over the other two
processes that you discuss is its ability to transmit dispersed
information among and between the subunits.

One thing, however, that was not very clear to me in your discussion,
was who the "you" is that is doing the designing. Because knowledge
exists only in the minds of individual human beings, there is no such
thing as a group mind. Therefore, what we might call group knowledge and
collective design emerges within an institutional framework (a modern
business R&D department or a university lab, for example). "Network
effects" is a big topic in economics these days.

I believe that we need a notion of what some philosophers call
"collective intentionality" to fully understand how collective design
works (and perhaps what the limits of collective design might be). There
is a very big jump from "what I know" and "what I designed" to "what we
know" and "what we designed". In the group environment, this distinction
is important because each individual will have differing goals and
beliefs as well as different information and knowledge. In fact I
believe that group knowledge is emergent in the sense that it is more
than the sum of individual knowledge.

In another of your posts in this thread you noted that: "... at the end
of the day, no good human designer actually trusts the designs that he
has come up with. So he builds a prototype and tests it. And, if the
prototype fails, it is 'back to the drawing board'." I think this is an
important point in the context of group design as well. Such testing is
not only important against a production environment, but it is important
also in the development process as a way of transmitting diverse
information.

Michael Nuwer
nuwermj at potsdam dot edu

.

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