Complexity Theory

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map

All the properties that follow:

  • A system is complex when it is composed of many parts that interconnect in intricate ways
  • A system presents dynamic complexity when cause and effect are subtle, over time.
  • A system is complex when it is composed of a group of related units (subsystems), for which the degree and nature of the relationships is imperfectly known. The overall emergent behavior is difficult to predict, even when subsystem behavior is readily predictable. Small changes in inputs or parameters may produce large changes in behavior
  • A complex system has a set of different elements so connected or related as to perform a unique function not performable by the elements alone
  • Scientific complexity relates to the behavior of macroscopic collections of units endowed with the potential to evolve in time
  • Complexity theory and chaos theory both attempt to reconcile the unpredictability of non-linear dynamic systems with a sense of underlying order and structure

make up for this definition I like sooo much:

Complexity is the property of a real world system that is manifest in the inability of any one formalism being adequate to capture all its properties.

 

Reference

Ferreira, P., 2001. Tracing Complexity Theory. Full presentation available here

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Kuhn’s concept of ‘incommensurability’

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incommensurability

The term originally appeared in Kuhn’s “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” book in 1962. He had been struggling with the word since the ’40s:

According to Kuhn, he discovered incommensurability as a graduate student in the mid to late 1940s while struggling with what appeared to be nonsensical passages in Aristotelian physics(…) He could not believe that someone as extraordinary as Aristotle could have written them. Eventually patterns in the disconcerting passages began to emerge, and then all at once, the text made sense to him: a Gestalt switch that resulted when he changed the meanings of some of the central terms. He saw this process of meaning changing as a method of historical recovery. He realized that in his earlier encounters, he had been projecting contemporary meanings back into his historical sources (Whiggish history), and that he would need to peel them away in order to remove the distortion and understand the Aristotelian system in its own right (hermeneutic history) (…) Kuhn realized that these sorts of conceptual differences indicated breaks between different modes of thought, and he suspected that such breaks must be significant both for the nature of knowledge, and for the sense in which the development of knowledge can be said to make progress.

Kuhn was influenced by the bacteriologist Ludwik Fleck who used the term to describe the differences between ‘medical thinking’ and ‘scientific thinking’ and Gestalt psychology, especially as developed by Wolfgang Köhler.

Kuhn’s original holistic characterization of incommensurability has been distinguished into two separate theses:

  • taxonomic involves conceptual change (…) no over-lap principle that precludes cross-classification of objects into different kinds within a theory’s taxonomy/ no two kind terms may overlap in their referents unless they are related as species to genus, in contrast to
  • methodological, which involves the epistemic values used to evaluate theories (…) it is the idea that there are no shared, objective standards of scientific theory appraisal, so that there are no external or neutral standards that univocally determine the comparative evaluation of competing theories

 

Reference

The Incommensurability of Scientific Theories, In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, first published Wed Feb 25, 2009; substantive revision Tue Mar 5, 2013, available here

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Systems theory & Autopoiesis/ Society & Complexity

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lee-bul-autopoiesis

Systems Theory or Systems Science: A system is an entity with interrelated and interdependent parts; it is defined by its boundaries and it is more than the sum of its parts (subsystem)/ n a complex system (having more than one sub-system.) a change in one part of the system will affect the operation and output of other parts and the operation and output of the system as a whole, systems theory attempts to find predictable patterns of behavior of these systems, and generalizes them to systems as a whole. The stability, growth or decline of a system will depend upon how well that system is able to adjust or be adjusted by its operating environment

Niklas Luhmann-Social Systems Theory: distinction between system and environment (inside/outside)/ it is the communications between people not people themselves, they are outside the system/ our thoughts make no difference to society unless they are communicated/ systems communicate about their environments, not with them/ the environment is what the system cannot control/ systems relate to the environment as information and as a resource/ society-encounters-organizations: the three types of social systems.

Autopoiesis: literally means self-creation/ a system capable of reproducing and maintaining itself; it is autopoietic if the whole produces the parts from which it is made/

Society:  is an autopoietic system whose elements are communicative events reproducing other communicative events/ this communication has content and relationship levels: what is communicated and how/ all communication is both communication and communication about communication/ communication is imaginary/ communication takes place when an observer infers that one possible behaviour has been selected to express one possible message or idea/ the meaning of the message is always inferred by the observer.

Complexity: a system becomes complex when it is impossible to relate every element to every other element in every conceivable way at the same time/ when we can observe it in non equivalent ways/ when we can discern many distinct subsystems/ complexity is a property of observing 

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Jane Gilbert’s, ‘Catching the Knowledge Wave’

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GILBERT

Knowledge society: the social, economic and political changes that are taking place as countries move from the industrial to the post-industrial age

  • based on developing and exploiting new forms of knowledge
  • shows increase in the creative, technology or service based industries
  • linked with developments in information and communications technologies while people’s understanding of time, space and place are changing
  • new forms of info, new ways of presenting info and new forms of money emerge
  • more complex forms of personal identity
  • in economic terms new work order based on fast capitalism and new forms of production and new management systems. this changes the meaning of knowledge, innovation and learning. knowledge is now innovation, innovation is quality and quality control is knowledge management. knowledge, in the Knowledge Society, has a different meaning from the one it has in educational contexts.

Castells: knowledge is not a thing; it is energy; it is defined by its effectiveness in action and the results it achieves; it’s what causes things to happen; it is sth produced collaboratively by teams of people; it is constantly changing. [The Network Society]

Lyotard: he too advocated for knowledge as energy or ability to do things (performativity); used in an as-and-when-needed basis; many reasons, many truths, many knowledges are possible and desirable; traditional disciplinary boundaries will dissolve; new conceptions of learning will develop; people will develop and understanding of an organized stock of public and professional knowledge to pursue performativity, to apply it to new situations. [The Postmodern Condition]

Knowledge:

  • process, not a thing
  • does things
  • happens in teams
  • can’t be divided into disciplines
  • develops in an as-and-when-needed basis
  • develops to be replaced, not stored

Learning:

  • involves generating new knowledge, not storing
  • is a group activity
  • happens is real-world
  • should be just-in-time not just-in-case
  • needs to be a la carte

Minds are not containers, but resources that can be connected to other resources for the purpose of generating new knowledge

To summarize then, developing a Knowledge Society education system involves approaches that can:
•Develop new knowledge – through real research, not teacher-initiated projects. Knowledge Age schools need to be producers – not consumers – of knowledge;
•Develop multi-modal literacy (understanding and using non-print modes of making meaning – images, sounds, gestures/body language and so on);
•Foreground the relationships, connections and interactions between different knowledge systems and different modes of representation;
•Emphasize difference and diversity, not sameness and/or one-size-fits-all approaches;
•Foreground process not product;
•Help learners build a sense of themselves as active knowledge- builders – as having a unique niche, role and/or point of difference/contribution to make.

 

References

Jane Gilbert, 2010. Catching the Knowledge Wave. In Education Canada Vol 47 (3) www.cea-ace.ca,  ISSN 0013-1253

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information v informational society

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INFO GRAPH

  • information society: focuses on the role of info in society, communication of knowledge as it has always existed
  • informational society: indicates the attribute of a specific form of social organization in which information generation, processing and transmission become the fundamental sources of productivity and power because of new technological conditions emerging in this historical period /in parallel to industry and industrial where industrial stands for a society whose ind organization permeate all spheres of activity/ one of its key features is the networking logic of its basic structure which explains the basic concept ‘network society’, however, the rem doesn’t exhaust all the meaning of informational society

 

References

Castells, Manuel (1996, second edition, 2009). The Rise of the Network Society, The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture Vol. I. Malden, MA; Oxford, UK: Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-631-22140-1, pp.21-24

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Mode 2: Transdisciplinar Knowledge

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COMPLEXITY THEORY

  • problem solving carried out following the codes of practice relevant to a particular discipline: the context is defined in relation to the cognitive and social norms that govern basic research
  • problem solving organized around a particular application (mode 2): knowledge results from a broader range of considerations, it is produced under an aspect of continuous negotiation and it will not be produced unless and until the interests of the various actors are included, it is also socially distributed.

Transdisciplinarity has four features:

  • it develops a distinct but evolving framework to guide problem-solving efforts. This framework is generated and sustained within the context of application, not extrinsic to it.
  • the solution comprises both empirical and theoretical components and it is an undeniable contribution to knowledge but not necessarily disciplinary knowledge
  • the results are communicated to those who have participated, in the course of that participation. the diffusion of the results is initially accomplished in the process of their production, subsequent diffusion occurs as original practitioners move to new problem contexts not by reporting
  • it is dynamic, on the move, it is difficult to predict the future applications of the knowledge produced

 

References

Gibbons, M., Limoges, C., Nowotny, H., Schwartzman, S., Scott, P., Trow, M., 2005. The New Production of Knowledge: The Dynamics of Science and Research in Contemporary Societies. London; Thousand Oaks; New Delhi: Sage Publications, First published in 1994. ISBN 0-8039-7793-X, pp. 3-6

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Changing Relations between Science and Society

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Changing+Modes+of+Knowledge+Production

  • The Risk Society Thesis (Beck): a variant of post-industrialism, outgrowth of nuclear energy, production from ‘goods’ to ‘bads’, the manufacturing of uncertainties, need for reflexivity about the limits of science
  • Post-Normal Science (Ravetz): science and politics distinction is no longer valid, related to change from government to governance, rise of new fields of management, an inherent complexity in understanding risks, a need for policy-oriented risk assessment
  • New Mode of Knowledge Production (Gibbons et al): change in range and scope, market orientation, corporate control. university-industry collaboration, the state as strategist, blurring discursive boundaries, breaking down institutional borders, mixing skills and knowledge. Transdisciplinarity (mode 2): knowledge emerges from a particular context of application with its own distinct theoretical structures and research methods which may not be locatable in the prevailing disciplinary map.
  • From Science to Research-Constructivism (Latour)

 

References and Image: Andrew Jamison, Changing Contexts of Science. Slideshare Presentation

A history of doctoral studies in Scandinavia

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until the 1970’s: research education revolved around phd projects in which students derived their subject of research from their professional or pedagogical practice. the motivation was to conclude a professional career by reflecting one’s own interests. supervisors were most often non scholars, but highly esteemed practitioners with very little experience of research. the format was master-apprentice/ research was a marginal phenomenon while practice was dominant. 

beginning of the 1970’s: pressure was put for the development of a more academic profile in educational programs. sciences with more theoretically developed foundations, offered models that could influence arch programs. “normal research” was imitated. arch and urban design studies were considered as applied science and phd students of that time were asked to renounce their prof backgrounds as designers.arch research lacked awareness of its own intellectual identity in the dialogue between arch and various other disciplines. academics discussed the idea of developing a field-specific academic identity and epistemological basis more founded on the specific knowledge modes of arch. up until the 90’s the formats were two: the apprentice-master relationship and those who tried to extend curricula with new ambitions of introducing knowledge based on research

early 1990’s: the challenge was to legitimize the phd as ‘academic enough’, attempts were made to formulate frameworks for what practice-embedded issues were legitimate topics for research. critique on modernism brought influences from other fields outside arch

late 1990’s: the ‘from outside’ tendency was criticized. in 1992 a Nordic network of collaboration was established to determine national contexts, possible contents and methods of research in the fields of making knowledge. since then research education at several Scandinavian schools of architecture has been focusing on developing field-specific design scholarship

1996: TU Delft organized the conference entitled ‘Doctorates in Design and Architecture’. it was noted that both the academic and professional worlds were too conventional in their view of design and too limited by traditional preconceptions of the divisions between science and art

1997: Christopher Frayling led a group and issued a report entitled ‘Practice-Based Doctorates in the Creative and Performing Arts and Design‘. They concluded that “there is already a continuum from scientific research to creative practice”

2000: TU Delft organized the second international conference entitled ‘Research by Design’. it was a milestone as it elucidated the issues of scientific research, design and research by design. the profiles of architecture and design faculties began to be more nuanced than the traditional division between practitioners and theoreticians. The format still relied on the master-apprentice relation between teacher-practitioners and students, but those educators who were interested in research no longer appeared to represent an opposite pole in education, as their understanding of research came ever closer to practice amidst increasing attempts to develop field-specific scholarship

after 2000’s: research was directed to fields of research that were either SUPRA-DISCIPLINARY or SUB-DISCIPLINARY. It was through the now-canonical work “The New Production of Knowledge” by Michael Gibbons et al. that the notion of transdisciplinarity became widely spread. This transdisciplinary knowledge production also used methods and tools from practice, not least including design thinking and tools, and the authors called this mode of knowledge production Mode 2 in relation to the traditional, academic Mode 1. The founders of the Mode 1 / Mode 2 movement emphasize that in order to master the tasks of Mode 2, one has to get through an apprenticeship in Mode 1. the concept of transdisciplinarity also began to be discussed in the international field of architectural theory.

2003: Bologna-Berlin policies recognized doctoral studies as the third cycle in European higher education

2013: three conferences were held at Sint-Lucas School of Architecture. the latest in 2013 was entitled ‘Knowing (by) Designing‘. The proceedings of this series of conferences from 1996 to 2013 can be regarded as documenting the growing awareness among practitioners, teachers, and researchers that field-specific design scholarship should more self-consciously and more courageously seek its own, more field-specific mode.

2010’s: From dyadic to triadic identities and exchanges between education, practice, and research. research program under the name of Architecture in the Making aims to develop theories and methods from the perspective of, and in collaboration with, arch practice to strengthen arch research. Research within this environment includes doctoral projects, post-doc projects, and projects for senior researchers.

 

References

Halina Dunin-Woyseth, Fredrik Nilsson, 2014.  Design Education, Practice, and Research: On Building a Field of Inquiry. In STUDIES IN MATERIAL THINKING, Vol 11, Paper 01, ISSN: 1177-6234

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Design and Science_Cross

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DESIGN-SCIENCE

  • 1920’s search for scientific design products: Van Doesburg attested that modernity was hostile to subjective speculation
  • 1960’s concern for a scientific design process: the 1962 conference on design methods in London marked the launch of design methodology as a field of inquiry (…) the movement sought to base the design process on objectivity and rationality (…) Fuller called for a design science revolution, Simon plead for a science of design
  • The new ‘Design Methods Movement’ developed through a series of conferences in the 1960s and 70s. The first design methods or methodology books also appeared in this period – Hall (1962), Asimow (1962), Alexander (1964), Archer (1965), Jones (1970), Broadbent (1973) – and the first creativity books – Gordon (1961), Osborn (1963).
  • 1970’s marked a backlash against design methodology (…) Alexander and Jones renounced the machine language, the attempt to ‘fix’ the world in a logical framework (…) there had also been a lack of success in the application of design methods to everyday design practice (…) design and planning problems were characterized as ‘wicked’ instead of ‘tame’.
  • 1973, Rittel saved Design Methodology by his proposal of Generations of Methods. He suggested that what had been developed in the 60’s was only the first generation of methods (systematic, rational) and that a second one was beginning to emerge (recognition of appropriate solution types and an argumentative participatory process in which designers are partners with the problem-owners -clients-).
  • 1980’s-1990’s emergence of new journals and books of design research, theory and methodology [Hubka (1982), Pahl and Beitz (1984), French (1985), Cross
    (1989), Pugh (1991)] (…) and through a series of international conferences- aka ICED, ASME and VDI (…) 1980’s Design:Science: Method Conference signaled the time to move beyond the simplistic comparisons and distinctions between design and science (…) the epistemology of design had little to gain for the disarray of the epistemology of science (…) AI developments
  • 2000’s signals perhaps the reemergence of design science concerns
  • Scientific Design: it refers to modern industrialized design (…) it was based on the assumption that that modern industrial design had become too complex for intuitive methods (…) through the reliance of modern design upon scientific knowledge, design made science visible utilizing a mix of bioth intuitive andnon-intuitive design methods
  • Design Science: term coined by B. Fuller or Gregory in 1965 (…) recognize laws of design, develop rules (…) logically connected knowledge in the area of design (…) DS to address the problem of determining and categorizing all regular phenomena (…) DS derives from the applied knowledge of the natural sciences appropriate information (…) an explicitly organized, rational and wholly systematic approach to design
  • Science of Design: study of designing may be a scientific activity (Grant) (…) a federation of subdisciplines having design as the subject of their cognitive interests (Gasparski and Strzalecki) (…) it is the study of design; its principles, practices and procedures (…) it is the body of work that attempts to improve our understanding of design through scientific methods of interpretation.
  • Design as a Discipline: an epistemology of practice implicit in the artistic, intuitive processes which some practitioners bring to situations of uncertainty, instability and value conflict (Schon) (…) study of design as an interdisciplinary study accessible to all those involved in the creative activity of making the artificial world (simon) (…) design studied on its own terms, within its own rigorous culture

 

References

Nigel Cross, 2001. Designerly ways of knowing: design discipline versus design science. In Design Issues 17(3), pp.49-55

Nigel Cross, 1993. A history of Design Methodology. In Design Methodology and Relationships with Science, pp. 15-27, Kluwer Academic Publishers

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Knowledge claims

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Types-of-Knowledge-Claims

  • Claims of fact: those that can be verified or falsified, proven true or false
  • Claims of value: value judgments
  • Claims of policy: what should be done instead of what is being done
  • Claims of concept: those that are about the meaning of things
  • Claims of interpretation: how are some data understood

The authors claim that natural and social science publications tend to make singular knowledge claims of similar kinds whereas design publications often contain multiple knowledge claims of different kinds.

Multiple knowledge claims of different kinds within individual journal publications might be the consequence of a young, multidisciplinary field. Another explanation might be that scholars publishing in Design Studies tend to embrace the values of design and science, which may account for those publications making claims of fact and claims of policy. Finally, a third explanation might be that scholars publishing in Design Studies are writing for multiple audiences with diverse needs. (bold is mine)

 

References

Jordan Beck, Erik Stolterman, 2016. Examining the Types of Knowledge Claims Made in Design Research. In she ji, Tongji University and Tongji University Press.

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AGIL

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fig7

The AGIL system is considered a cybernetic hierarchy. It is a ‘general analytic model suitable for analyzing all types of collectivities’. It represents the four basic functions that all social systems must perform if they are to persist. It was one of the first open systems theories of organizations.

  • A: from adaptation or the capacity of society to interact with the environment. This includes, among other things, gathering resources and producing commodities to social redistribution. cognitive symbolization
  • G: from goal attainment or the capability to set goals for the future and make decisions accordingly. Political resolutions and societal objectives are part of this necessity. expressive symbolization
  • I: from integration, or the harmonization of the entire society is a demand that the values and norms of society are solid and sufficiently convergent. This requires, for example, the religious system to be fairly consistent, and even in a more basic level, a common language. moral evaluative symbolization
  • L: from latency, or latent pattern maintenance, challenges society to maintain the integrative elements of the integration requirement above. This means institutions like family and school, which mediate belief systems and values between an older generation and its successor. constitutive symbolization

 

References

AGIL paradigm and Parson’s Social System

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