Glossary
- Advanced Design
- A way of employing symbiont interaction with client using inquiry, creative
processes, and the whole system approach to intentionally innovate synergetic
strategies to engage complex issues. Advanced design is engaged in the
processes necessary for bringing forth something that was previously unknown.
- Aesthetics
- In the context of advanced design, aesthetics are perceived as manifestations
of the intuitive qualities integral to that which is being designed. Even
though normally associated with its philosophical origins in beauty and
art, aesthetics can be understood as an essential component of contemporary
life.
- Analogy
- Things that are inferred to have similarities without being directly
alike. Advanced design uses analogies to relate things as yet unknown
to those forms more familiar in order to convey conceptual ideas.
- Analysis
- The process of breaking up into parts or otherwise separating wholes
into the constituent parts. Analysis is used to examine and determine
the properties of the parts and to derive an understanding of the assembled
whole.
- Autopoiesis
- The ability to be self-renewing without the need of outside interventions.
Refers to a characteristic of living systems enabling them to continually
renew themselves and to regulate the process in such a way that the integrity
of their structure is maintained.
- Boundaries
- Limits placed on a system in order to define and isolate it for description.
Boundaries are sometimes arbitrary conveniences but necessary to create
comprehensible wholes. Boundaries are always relative and do not always
exist in reality.
- Cause
- Cause as used in the advanced design sense can have multiple meanings
coming from Aristotle who proposed four types:
- "Efficient cause" is one that produces
some sort of outcome.
- "Material cause" happens because the
outcome is made of the cause.
- "Formative cause" is the case where the
condition is an element of the outcome.
- "Final cause" or "teleological
cause" where the outcome is the result of intention or the purpose
of the antecedent condition.
- Change
- First order change is an innovation that takes place within the boundaries
of a system. Second order change is a transformation which changes the
system itself.
- Chaos Theory
- The description of dynamical complex systems which are unpredictably
modified by changes in the initial conditions and changes in the enveloping
environment. If it is irregularly influenced by feedback, a system increases
in complexity and constantly changes. The system is holistic because these
changes occur within a certain limit or boundary (strange attractor) even
though it too may dynamically fluctuate.
- Client
- In advanced design, the client must have a surrogate to do the design
because the complexity of the system is such that the client is unable
to also be the designer. With the designer in his/her service, the client
is the guarantor and enabler who is responsible for the accomplishment
of the design effort.
- Comprehension
- Comprehension is knowledge on three levels individually or inclusively.
It means on one level to simply understand something by knowing what it
is. In a larger sense it is meant to know a thing in depth and to understand
it thoroughly. And in the total sense comprehension is to know a thing
and to understand it thoroughly within its larger context; that is wholistically.
- Complexity
- Complexity has two primary forms: complexity of component detail and
complexity out of fluctuation over time. Component complexity is complicated,
intricate and involved. By the iteration of feedback over time the complex
system becomes chaotic.
- Creative Process
- An essential element of design intelligence that enables imagined innovations
to be brought forth and expressed in reality.
- Dilemma
- A situation requiring the choice between equally desirable or undesirable
alternatives. Dilemmas are a class of indeterminant problems which defy
simple solutions and may require reliance on non-rational forms of design
intelligence such as intuition or instinct to avoid deadlock.
- Design
- A plan, scheme or idea intended to be put into action. Design can be
conceived on many different levels of complexity and for a variety of
purposes. Design has always been the domain under which we as a species
have brought about change. We have used design to interface with our environment
with the expectation of improving the human condition in some form. As
the world has evolved into a more complex system over time the design
process has become more complicated as well. Advanced design has come
about to more effectively address these more complex issues.
- Designer
- The complexity of advanced design requires people of talent, knowledge,
expertise, and wisdom to be the designers who create the new work. Designers
must be in service with the client and respond to the agreed upon needs
of the client that are developed in the prospectus for design.
- Design Intelligence
- In advance design terms, design intelligence is the evolutionary result
of a genetic propensity to make intentional change. Design intelligence
integrates together what are normally seen as separate modes of having
knowledge: Instinctively, Intuitively, Empirically, and Rationally.
- Dialogue
- Design dialogue is a part of the advanced design process which is established
in the inquiry phase and projected through the whole design effort. Dialogue
is a formalized way of advancing issues germane to the design.
- Diathenic Graphologue
- From Greek roots meaning: "letting a thing be seen through representation."
It is a way of representing a concept that exists only in the designer's
imagination and my be done by prose, symbols, visual images and multimedia.
- Domains
- Domain is the bounded system and related systems which are critical to
it.
- Dysteleogy
- Branch of learning concerned with disfunction or deterioration of societies
or systems.
- Ecosphere
- The domain of the earth which is critical to the system of the biosphere.
- Ecosystem
- The system which comprises the living and non-living elements of the
biosphere.
- Emergent Qualities
- The synergetic properties or attributes of wholes which are more than
just the sum of the component parts. The essence of whole systems is more
than what can be deduced from the aggregate of individual component entities.
- Empirical Knowledge
- Knowledge that is derived from actual experience verified by the senses.
- Energy
- In physics, energy is defined as the ability to do work and can be either
kinetic or potential. In an advanced design context, energy is more allied
to the idea of the ability to make things happen (kinetic) or the intention
to initiate action (potential).
- Environment
- The dominion that confines a system. The conditions in which a system
is embedded over which the system may have influence but not control.
- Epistemology
- The theory of knowledge. Advanced design is concerned with what design
knowledge is, what can be known about design intelligence and what are
the limits of design knowledge.
- Ethics
- In general ethics are thought of as a moral code or standard of conduct.
Design ethics focus around the issues of value, how the design and the
design process affect the "standard of life, way of life, quality of life
and spirit of life" ( Nelson, Whole Systems Design)
- Evolution
- The process of development or change over time. In the advanced design
context, it is the progression of increasing complexity. Synergistic things
are created by transcending and including the antecedent, yet it remains
whole.
- Feedback
- Information generated by a system which can be processed by and returned
to the system in an iterative way, thereby providing energy the system
may use to modify itself.
- Feedforward
- The design process is directed by energy that seeks novelty without fully
comprehending what it might be. The energy is generated by an aesthetic
and intuitive response to the challenge of the design situation. Feedforward
is like a strange attractor for the developing design system.
- Fractal
- Fractals are elements with fractional dimensions between whole integers.
Fractals may represent patterns which are infinitely self similar at varying
scales. The fractal boundary of a strange attractor can be thought to
represent a bounded system that is an evolving complex system recognizable
by the self similar patterns being formed from the surrounding disorder.
- Gestalt
- A theory of psychology that asserts that perception is a process whereby
images are perceived as wholes and patterns. The perception of the total
context introduces the emergent qualities which affect the way in which
a thing is comprehended.
- Heuristic
- The process of discovery by proceeding empirically without definitively
knowing the means.
- Hierarchy
- A hierarchy is an arrangement of things in a ranking order. A systems
hierarchy will include the ranks of lesser complexity in the progressively
higher ranks.
- Holon
- A holon is a whole system composed of functioning parts which in turn
is a part of a larger whole system.
- Holonomy
- Refers to the principle governing whole systems that transcends partial
or analytical definition.
- Inquiry
- An early stage of the advanced design process in which questions are
brought forth about the nature of the design issue to serve as a method
of discovery and conceptualization of the whole systems involved with
the design effort.
- Instinctive Knowledge
- The natural state of behavior that causes automatic response to stimuli;
or of having an innate ability or talent.
- Intuitive Knowledge
- The ability to know of things, to imagine things, to innovate and to
be inspired.
- Iteration
- Repetitive processing involving feedback from previous stages that is
incorporated into the activity as it progresses.
- Metaphor
- Design often uses metaphor to transfer the meaning of something known
to a concept that cannot be explained in its own terms because it does
not yet have full presence or existence.
- Model
- Like metaphor, a model can be used to approximate a concept without being
an absolute representation. Models can be used to help comprehend a conceptual
innovation in the formative stages and provide a schematic simulation
of what could be created.
- Non-linear Systems
- Dynamical systems are nonlinear because the complex changes which are
infused by feedback.
- Ontology
- Theory of the nature of reality or of being as well as the origin and
nature of the universe.
- Order
- Order is a state of predictability where behavior follows established
laws and principles.
- Perception and Sensation
- Stimuli from aesthetic sources trigger sense receptors and the impulses
are transmitted to the brain which responds with sensation and perception.
Sensation is interpreted as what is happening to the person directly,
what and how the senses are being stimulated. Perception considers what
is taking place outside of the person and interprets the source.
- Paradigm
- A model or pattern which is a conceptual explanation of a complex system.
- Pattern
- A regular way of acting, doing or being which can be perceived as a predictable
marker of existence.
- Positivism
- A philosophical point of view that science is the only basis for truth
and that nothing is knowable that goes beyond the facts and laws determined
by science.
- Preconception
- The premature or trivial acceptance of an idea as being complete and
finished before it is fully formed.
- Problem
- In the advanced design context, problems are of two kinds: solvable and
indeterminant.
- Solvable problems have the solution
explicit in the problem statement.
- Indeterminant problems may be
indeterminable altogether or of a complex nature that renders them to
be inexact, uncertain, dualistic or otherwise confounding of solutions.
- Purposive
- That which serves a purpose, a goal, or is pursued with intention.
- Prospectus
- The prospectus is a document that sets forth such things as the expectations,
requirements, constraints, constituents and judgement criteria which are
agreed upon by designer and client to be considered in the design process.
- Rational Knowledge
- Knowledge gained from the inductive and deductive reasoning processes.
- Reductionism
- The scientific method that analytically reduces complexities into smaller
components in order to gain understanding of the parts from which attributes
of the original conglomerate can be asserted.
- Semiotics
- The study of signs, symbols and the systems by which they are linked
and given meaning. Semiology can be studied in the context of language,
behavior and activities such as ritual and ceremony.
- Symbiosis
- The relationship of interdependence between mutually benefiting entities.
- Synchronicity
- The conjunction of events which have the same meaning happening at the
same time without any apparent cause, connection or known reason linking
them.
- Synergy
- The effect of emergent qualities where the actions of the constituent
elements yields a resultant that is greater than the total effect of the
elements considered separately or as subcomponents.
- Systems
- A bounded group of interrelated parts acting together synergetically
to achieve some purpose.
- Closed systems have rigid boundaries
that prevent interaction with it's environment.
- Open systems have dynamic boundaries
that can interact and exchange with it's environment.
- Complex systems are dynamical
systems that interrelated with others and interact with them in various
ways.
- Teams
- Teams in the advanced design context are groups formed to accomplish
the design effort and may or may not be designers or those with special
skills. Teams may be constituted for long term or temporary activity.
- Teleology
- The study of purpose or intent in natural systems in order to comprehend
behavior of the systems.
- Topology
- The study of the geometry of shapes distorted in space.
- Transcendence
- Literally, transcendence is to go beyond human experience and knowledge.
In the terms of advanced design, transcendence is a part of the effort
to bring forth something that has never before been known.
- Transformation
- The change of data, information and knowledge into a different form or
resultant; input is transformed into output.
- Users
- Advanced design considers users to be the ones who actually are directly
affected by the outcome of the design effort. For better or worse, the
user will be required to deal with the resultant. The advance designer
is ethically obligated to the users as a part of the advanced design process.
- Value Measurement
- Because every design effort has a value system, either explicit or implicit,
it is essential to the advanced design process that values be addressed.
An assessment should be made based on the predetermined criteria stated
in the prospectus. This assessment is the value measurement.
- Whole Systems
- Derived from General Systems Theory which Von Bertalanffy explained as
the study of the properties, principles and patterns common to systems
from the most elementary physical levels to the most complex social systems.
Whole systems' domain is the volitional world of dynamic human activity
systems having the emergent qualities that make the total entity more
complex. This requires comprehension to be greater than just the understanding
of the constituent parts. Whole systems incorporate values (aesthetic,
cultural, ethical, etc.) and judgement into the interrelationships of
the composite whole.
- Worldview
- The growth of consciousness advances though different stages developing
a framework for relating to the human domain along the way. This framework
for understanding the world is the worldview.
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