Thursday, January 15, 2009

Design, Emotion and Dr. Terence Love


My employer is a partner with what are now known as the Linus Pauling Memorial Lectures sponsored by the Institute for Science, Engineering and Public Policy. As a part of this partnership or endowment or whatever it is I have the opportunity to receive free tickets to most any of the lectures each year. I have not gone for several years because research science is far from a primary passion of mine and there were a couple of times where in essence it turned out to be a drive to Portland to have a nap in the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. I can do that at home in front of the television just as well.

That's not to say there haven't been some interesting and engaging evenings at these lectures over the year. Freeman Dyson was a strange kind of bird but indeed intriguing. Howard Rheingold's appearance at the beginning of public Internet fever was truly kind of influential for me. Howard Gardner's lecture on leadership was excellent.

And probably most memorable was Dr. David Chalmers, an Australian philospher who was made a scientific case for the study and awareness of consciousness. Pam and I still talk about how this wooly headed wildman brought out his consciousness detecting machine, which was in reality a hotel hair dryer as he would almost chant "searching for consciousness, searching for consciousness" And then he would turn on the hair dryer and declare he found consciousness.

The most recent lecture of the series was Dr. Terence Love, also a fellow Australian, but he did not prove to be as dynamic or entertaining as Chalmers was several years prior. Love's topic was listed as Holistic Design: A Philosophical Framework. He was courted to come to the US and give this lecture by Terry Bristol, the head of the ISEP and the major force behind the lecture series. In the Q&A after the lecture, it came out that the the Holstic Design title was even Bristol's idea. In his introduction, it was apparent that he is very passionate about raising awareness of design and engineering and is an advocate for teaching engineering at the high school level.

Love's presentation revealed an individual who was passionate in his life's work, but somehow his talk had a kind of Malcom Gladwell Blink or Tipping Point basic and simple thesis that got lost in the cavernous Schnitzer Hall along with the poor sound level and amplification of the wireless microphone that was attached to him.

Love began his talk with a wide overview of the ubiquity of design and the power and importance of design. His definition for design was quite basic. As a noun it was "a specification or plan for making or doing something. The verb definition was even more simplistic: "to create a design.

He believes that design is what is at the core of why the life expectancy of whites is double of that of aboriginals in Australia. He stressed the ubiquity of design, how it is the core to organizations, services, systems, and nation states. He brought out the old iceberg model which has been used so often to show how the vast majority of design is hidden. The designed interface of your Iphone does not reflect the software, hardware, research, cultural factors, and business infrastructure that created it.

Much of Love's talk referred to the work of António Damásio the theorist and researcher on matters of neurology and the brain. In particular, Love emphasized the aspect of Damasio's work that as Wikipedia puts it "helped to elucidate the neural basis for the emotions and has shown that emotions play a central role in social cognition and decision-making." Love focused on how these findings of Damásio's relate to the emotional aspect of designing and problem solving. As evidence he talked about the way the body seems to relax after a design to a problem is obtained.


Pam bumped into one of her writing colleagues before the lecture. She told her that if she comes away with just one new insight, these evenings are worthwhile. I ammend that to also to their ability to reinforce a belief you may already have. I thought about a late night I spent earlier this week as I was tackling a problem relating to the design of one of my courses. It was slow and a bit agonizing and frustrating because I was closing in on the single digit hours of the new day which I knew would likely be pretty arduous. But when I came across a solution that I knew would work for me and my class, there was indeed a sense of relief and satisfaction. I went to sleep completely and solidly within what seemed just a few minutes.
posted by well-executed buffet at 10:26 PM
Comments: Post a Comment