vol 2: Synopsis
part V: Applied divinity
page 38: Design
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This site is part of the natural religion project The natural religion project A new theology A commentary on the Summa The theology company
Design
The effectiveness of our work depends heavily upon design and and technique. In a dynamic system like our world, the whole and the parts are continually influencing one another to iterate toward an optimal system. Our question is how do we optimise design? In traditional theology, design is already optimised by an omniscient and omnipotent God. If the universe is divine, then it designs itself. The theory of evolution describes an algorithm for self-design. Being intelligent, we can do better by modelling designs before we construct them, thus saving resources. Effective religion oversees design, seeking a decision process to rank designs by their conformity with the conditions for peace.
One of the traditional arguments for the distinction between God and the world is the argument from design.:
The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. We see that things which lack intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that not fortuitously, but designedly, do they achieve their end. Now whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is shot to its mark by the archer. Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God. Aquinas Summa I 2 3.
We have seen that science and all other forms of knowledge proceed by trial guided by error. Once a matter is known, trial and error are no longer necessary, and one can move directly toward the target.
The most magnificent panorama of trial and error that we see on earth is the evolution of life by natural selection. Every creature that is born is a trial. Some succeed, and reproduce. Some fail, that is fall into error. By the logic of reproduction, their genotype is not reproduced, so we have a continual pressure, from generation to generation, toward the modelling of creatures fitted to survive.
If we study the history of any area of design, from cooking utensils to power plants, we see a process of evolution taking place guided by whatever science is available. In the design of heat engines, for instance, the Carnot cycle guides us toward more efficient engines by setting up an ideal engine as a standard.
The first element in any design is a catalogue of goals and constraints. We want a transport system which serves everybody equally and cheaply. Research on traffic volume shows that there is no way a dense city can have enough road space to allow all transport to take place by personal vehicle. A goal and a constraint. The search for solutions is guided by these seeking a the best way to meet the specification.
Our mental exploration of the world yields possibilities for action. Because the world is so complex, however, there is generally a wealth of detail to be dealt with before a bright idea becomes a practical reality. The same is true of every task from cooking to space travel. The devil, as they say, is in the details. It is the designer's job to master all the details, often building on many years of personal and collective experience in a particular industry.
We expect good designs to be safe and easy to use, environmentally friendly, easy to manufacture, attractive in the market place and in every way perfectly fitted to their task. This is not easy, and every designer is continually faced with compromises.
Design does not apply to physical objects only. Spiritual structures, including religions, are also subject to design, consciously or unconsciously. Religion has a clear role to play in design, moving it toward the goals of peace, justice, equality, freedom, beauty, goodness to which we all aspire. Reflective and critical religion tries to move itself toward these same goals. As part of the divine system, we are responsible for designing our own heaven.
Books
| Dawkins, Richard, The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design, Penguin/Pelican 1996 Preface: '[Darwinism] is, indeed a remarkably simple theory; ... In essence it amounts simply to the idea that non-random reproduction where there is hereditary variation, has consequences that are far reaching if there is time for them to be cumulative ... ' Amazon back |
| Dawkins, Richard, The Selfish Gene , Oxford UP 1976 Amazon: Editorial review: 'Inheriting the mantle of revolutionary biologist from Darwin, Watson, and Crick, Richard Dawkins forced an enormous change in the way we see ourselves and the world with the publication of The Selfish Gene. Suppose, instead of thinking about organisms using genes to reproduce themselves, as we had since Mendel's work was rediscovered, we turn it around and imagine that "our" genes build and maintain us in order to make more genes. That simple reversal seems to answer many puzzlers which had stumped scientists for years, and we haven't thought of evolution in the same way since.' Rob Lightner Amazon back |
| Dawkins, Richard, Climbing Mount Improbable, W. W. Norton & Company 1997 Amazon editorial review: 'How do species evolve? Richard Dawkins, one of the world's most eminent zoologists, likens the process to scaling a huge, Himalaya-size peak, the Mount Improbable of his title. An alpinist does not leap from sea level to the summit; neither does a species utterly change forms overnight, but instead follows a course of "slow, cumulative, one-step-at-a-time, non-random survival of random variants"--a course that Charles Darwin, Dawkins's great hero, called natural selection. Illustrating his arguments with case studies from the natural world, such as the evolution of the eye and the lung, and the coevolution of certain kinds of figs and wasps, Dawkins provides a vigorous, entertaining defense of key Darwinian ideas.' Amazon back |
| Mandelbrot, Benoit B , The Fractal Geometry of Nature, Freeman 1988 Jacket: 'A rarity: a picture book of sophisticated contemporary research ideas in mathematics. Here, it concerns recursively defined curves and shapes, whose dimensionality is not a whole number. Amazingly, Mandelbrot shows their relvance to practically every branch of science.' Douglas R. Hofstadter Amazon back |
| Mattheck, C, and W Linnard (translator), Design in Nature: Learning from Trees, Springer Verlag 1998 Review: '[Claus Mattheck's] habilitation was in fracture mechanics, so he is well placed to see that the shapes of nature, by eliminating self weight and stress concentrations, represent optimised solutions for engineering design. ... He summarises the computer models he uses, and the reasons for using them, and applies them to growing, damaged and diseased trees and then to bone, claws, thorns, shell structures and bracing. Finally he applies his methods to the design of a variety of engineering structures. I recommend this book to biologists and engineers alike. Julian Vincent: Nature 392: 242 19 March 1998 Amazon back |
| McHarg, Ian L, Design with Nature, Doubleday/Natural History Press 1971 Introduction, Lewis Mumford: 'In establishing the necessity for conscious intention, for ethical evaluation, for orderly organisation, for deliberate esthetic expression in handling every part of the environment, McHarg's emphasis is not on either design or nature by itself, but on the preposition with, which implies human cooperation and biological partnership. 'back |
| Papanek, Victor, Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change, Granada/Paladin 1992 Preface: 'In an environment that is screwed up visually, physically and chemically, the best and simplest thing that architects, industrial designers, planners etc., could do for humanity would be to stop working entirely. In all pollution, designers are implicated at least partially. But in this book, I take a more affirmative view: it seems to me that we can go beyond not working at all, and work positively. Design can and must become a way in which young people can participate in changing society.' Amazon back |
| Prigogine, Ilya, and Isabelle Stengers, Order Out of Chaos: Man's New Dialogue with Nature, Bantam 1984 Foreword: 'Order Out of Chaos is a brilliant, demanding, dazzling book -- challenging for all and richly rewarding for the attentive reader. It is a book to study, to savour, to reread -- and to question yet again. It places science and humanity back in a world where ceteris paribus is a myth -- a world in which other things are seldom held steady, equal or unchanging. In short it projects science into today's revolutionary world of instability, disequilibrium and turbulence. In so doing, it serves the highest creative function -- it helps us create fresh order.' Alvin Toffler, xxvi Amazon back |
| Stewart, Ian, Life's Other Secret: The new mathematics of the living world, Allen Lane 1998 Preface: 'There is more to life than genes. ... Life operates within the rich texture of the physical universe and its deep laws, patterns, forms, structures, processes and systems. ... Genes nudge the physical universe in specific directions ... . The mathematical control of the growing organism is the other secret ... . Without it we will never solve the deeper mysteries of the living world - for life is a partnership between genes and mathematics, and we must take proper account of the role of both partners.' (xi) Amazon back |
| Wirth, Niklaus, Programming in Modula-2 , Springer-Verlag 1989 Preface: 'This text is an introduction to programming in general, and a manual for programming in the language Modula-2 in particular. It is oriented primarily toward people who have already acquired some basic knowledge of programming anf would like to deepen their understanding in a more structured way. ...' page 3 Amazon back |
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