Design Rockism

[imomus]

My latest article for AIGA Voice magazine is Design Rockism. Trace design's topsy-turvy path from Josef Muller-Brockmann's 'Grid Systems' to the Groovisions Brockmann doll!

Comments

[imomus.livejournal.com]

When you talk about metaphysics, again I'm not sure what you mean.

The simplest definition of metaphysics for me is 'the belief that there is an absent reality more important than present realities'.

Something is concieved as an immmaterial 'thing' (idea) and then becomes physical

You're a Platonist, and I'm not. It's really as simple as that.

[stanleylieber.livejournal.com]

"You're a Platonist, and I'm not. It's really as simple as that."

This is really a brilliant rebuttal to most any religionist assertions about "reality." The person above seems to be obsessed with the "purpose" of various objects and/or features found in nature -- ignoring that the random processes which manifest to us as apparent "order" are simply reflections of our own desire to seek patterns in the chaos.

It's like when people look at a power outlet and see a human face.

[(Anonymous)]

"...ignoring that the random processes which manifest to us as apparent "order" are simply reflections of our own desire to seek patterns in the chaos"

How did you work out that these processes which appear ordered are random?

[stanleylieber.livejournal.com]

How did you work out that they're not?

If you read carefully, what I'm saying here is that the order we perceive is reliant on our perceptive ability. This is actually a "randomness agnostic," relativistic view, in spite of my clumsy phrasing. Events may well not be random, but lacking a workable epistimology to the contrary, that is the shorthand we use to describe their progression. It would seem that concepts such as "meaning" require a base set of assumptions to work from. Without that, chaos can only be chaos.

To posit some objective "order" begs that you can provide empirical support for your assumptions. So where do we start? What are the First Principles?

[(Anonymous)]

The first principle which shows that the world is ordered is the fact that when you were born you didn't have to dig for you lunch or make it out of some super-duper chemical but you could get it from your mother's breast. A newborn child, left to its own devices, will actually *crawl* up his mother's tummy and find the nipple himself. If that is not a demonstration of the ordered nature of the world then I don't know what is.

[stanleylieber.livejournal.com]

"If that is not a demonstration of the ordered nature of the world then I don't know what is."

Oh, I would concur.

[(Anonymous)]

"'the belief that there is an absent reality more important than present realities'."

By this definition, metaphysicism does not stand to reason since a) the 'absent reality' is clearly present - in some cases more obviously than others (e.g., magnetism, electricity, gravity, the vital force in organisms) and b) the immaterial and material appear to be integral parts of a whole, although the immaterial is definitely prior. If you look at a human being, the immaterial 'part' consists of the will and the intellect, which represent the purpose and work out how best to achieve it. The material 'part' is the means of implementing the decisions made by this level. Hence disease and its tendency to appear on the most external physical part first (place of least sacrifice - protects the overall man) and then rises higher if suppression takes place (eczema --> asthma). If man has no overriding purpose, what is the use of disease? If you look at VD, it should be clear that disease has a vital purpose - albeit contrary to our habitual desires.

(BTW: If you want to think about the 'importance' of content over form/immaterial over material, why does a person spend £20,000 on dental work then have the results burnt or thrown in a hole when he dies? Seems illogical. The part which departs when a person dies appears to render the physical corpse useless, although it was essential during the life as a means of performing the man's purpose. This departed interior - which cannot be quantified by weighing the body before and after death - is something which materialist science cannot comprehend, let alone 'reproduce'.)

Platonist? Again, I cannot say. I'm sure he must have had some grasp of the truth, since longevity is its surest test.

If one really believes that the physical world gives rise to the immaterial (as doctors would have us believe when they say that mental illness is a result of 'chemical imbalance in the brain' or that the pain felt by a child when he injures himself is due to a 'naughty' chair or similar), then life should be easy to create. Just get some earth and water and start mixing. That is certainly what happens when it rains on a desert. Scientists are quiet on this point.