HEY! Take your boring and stupid argument somewhere else. You both (and few others) sound like bad sports fans who have not brought up anything valuable to this conversation and readers.
You have so far ruined a great thread started and participated by few intelligent people.
This thread was doomed from the beginning with its misplaced take on nature and computation. It's vague approach to theory as a terrain for the "unknowable nature of people" was used as an ethical witchunt against artificiality.
messy discussion, yes. ruined thread?... thanks for contributing.
white fang, although I may have raised a question regarding ethics, i certainly am not interested in "an ethical witchunt against artificiality".
I am interested in artificiality, both architecturally and other. However, I would think that parametricism if anything isn't about artificiality. No more so then architecture designed using some other methodology/toolkit. Any building is artificial in some sense also, right? Perhaps, if we think of biomimetics as just organic architecture than no. Otherwise, can one escape an idea of artificial when talking about architecture?
Even Rachel Armstrong's Living Architecture of engineered "living systems" - and smart chemistry is artificial right?
Now in terms of computer, parametrics, or algorithmic / scripted design methods as a formal exercise, in terms of questions of aesthetics or beauty as was mentioned earlier, i can get on board with artificiality in a generative sense. My real concern is not in terms of beauty or form, but the reality of building.
it is unfortunate that most have not understood the point, or the sentiment, here. there is a certain checkpoint that seems to have disclosed how simplistic many of the contributers' (certainly not all) views are. i have specified my approach repetitively (perhaps i should have labelled the thread "an ethical interrogation into the semiotics of parametric/emergent design"). it is unfortunate that, instead of an inquisitive debate, this community has predominantly regurgitated traditional cliche's. yes, the notion of the artifical being on par with the natural has been rendered a cliche' here as has the notion of artificial as being the opposing counterpoint to the natural. would it not be more interesting to bring the assumptions behind these beliefs out to light? instead it seems many here are restricting themselves to the past up to a point or to the present up to a point. instead, we hear the vitriolic babble of the parametric regime'se self appointed SS squad.
i've been leafing throug the schumacher books and the weinstock/menges/hensel latest book. they've been informative, in different but complementary ways. i can see that my approach has validity; i feel schumacher's semiotic reading of parametricism is not incisive enough and i suspect that what he , very probably, takes for an indexical signification (he doesn't call it that, but his description of the effect of the program making itself read through the building proper is highly suggestive of the indexical effect) masks aspects of other figurative effects - but, more importantly, by suggesting the indexical, he wishes to insiduously convince one of the inevitability not only of the parametric(ist?) building but as well of parametric design as an approach. in short, he extends towards the logic of science metaphorically in order to endow the choice for such a design process with nuances of incontigency. this is made more clear in envisaging the role of science with respect to design: design is not (an art or a) science but, yet, it is informed by science (and the implication here is not the technology of the building construction or even solely that of the building design process, but the logic of science informing the logic of design- herein there is a mediated association, not an indexical one).
the weinstock and co book is necessarily less sophisticated in delving into the reasons for this association. they are not philosophers of the trade, unlike schumacher who has a philosophy background and their's is not a manifesto but more of a textbook presented in an engineering-science format, there is a near complete oblivion to the boundary between both sides of the equation.
so, more succinctly, it is not the ethics of, or lack thereof, parametric architecture or even parametric design that is or was the point here even if there is a derivative implication. rather, more primarily, the intellectual integrity, the ethics of thought, underlying this choice of design process.
Ethics is integral to this process. Ethics determines the parameters. Parametric design is not objective and neutral. The input is always biased. it is impossible to seperate parameters from "ethics." The problem that I have with much of the jargon from the parametric crowd is that they seem to believe that parametrics results in a more scientific or rational truth. All of our cultural and personal biases will not be filtered out through a parametric process, instead, I think that they are often magnified by this process.
For now, human agency via the market determines parameters. Humans are guided by desire to survive, not ethics.
Ethics is a fuzzy territory framed by politics and collective society, something which should be handed over to AI. If you want to deal with ethics, go into politics or religion.
PS
The only thing being magnified is the paranoid luddite inside you.
So, ethics is a territory in the social and political sphere but doesn't guide humans? Is parametricism the missing link between Mill's homo economicus and soviet-style technocracy? Nothing new under the sun, then.
let's play the point by point game, see if you can follow through:
Ethics is integral to this process. Ethics determines the parameters.
no. physics determines the parameters. there could only be one outcome. what part of humans not being made of fairy dust are you unable to comperehend?
Parametric design is not objective and neutral.
Irrelevant. Objective and neutral are pretty archaic conceptual constructs. You should know better than to use them in an intellectual discussion. Shaped by perception? is that what you mean? Then alright. Everything is. Thanks for stating the obvious.
The input is always biased.
See above.
it is impossible to seperate parameters from "ethics."
Huh? See the first point reply.
The problem that I have with much of the jargon from the parametric crowd is that they seem to believe that parametrics results in a more scientific or rational truth.
Actually, the the main problem you seem to have is that you refuse to address the basic points that undermine your assumptions. Strong parametrics borrow a lot from agent-based modeling, artificial intelligence systems and other computer science theory works, you never address any of those in a specific, concrete fashion. You just keep screaming "ethics, ethics" instead of engaging in a smart discussion.
All of our cultural and personal biases will not be filtered out through a parametric process, instead, I think that they are often magnified by this process.
And how is that a bad thing? and how could it have been any different?
There could be only *one* outcome? But genetic algorithms (as a subset of AI optimization computation) tends to gravitate towards local optima. Who is to decide when and if a local optimum is a global optimum?
Is there also an optimum piece of art, a book, a movie in every specific context?
not talking about optimality. taking about outcomes. given that even genetic algorithms work make use of pseudo-random number generators, the outcome is pretty much fixed at the time of execution.
Sure, but the outcome is supposed to be the optimum of all possible outcomes. With problems complex enough the amount of possible outcomes are simply too many. Random number generators are used as a kind of search optimization method in genetic algorithms, but since it's not possible to know before hand how many optimum solutions there are, you would never know if the result is indeed a global optimum. To illustrate: if you use other random numbers initially, you might get a better result. So how do you chose your random numbers?
For now, human agency via the market determines parameters. Humans are guided by desire to survive, not ethics. Maybe why all the parametric architecture that I see is shallow.
You are all so caught up in the wordy archi-talk that you can't even answer the basics. no. physics determines the parameters. there could only be one outcome. what part of humans not being made of fairy dust are you unable to comperehend? We are still talking about architecture right? The parameters are determined by the programmer correct? If so, that programmer must define those parameters. Every programmer will define the parameters differently based on what he/she thinks is important to the design. What that person thinks is important is a result of their world views, ethics, politics, etc. Architecture is always political. The outcome is the result of those parameters which are always biased. Because of this parametric design cannot be neutral and therefore it is not science it is design that is informed by scientific principals which is fine. If the author is a souless cog we will get a souless project (calm down not talking about soul in a religious sense more like in a musical sense) which is what most of it looks like to me architectural techno?
Actually, the the main problem you seem to have is that you refuse to address the basic points that undermine your assumptions. Strong parametrics borrow a lot from agent-based modeling, artificial intelligence systems and other computer science theory works, you never address any of those in a specific, concrete fashion. You just keep screaming "ethics, ethics" instead of engaging in a smart discussion
Lets talk about AI since you bring it up. Is AI artificial? I would say no- nothing is artificial, it's all just different arrangements of atoms... So I have nothing ethically wrong with any of this, but It is pretty foolish to assume that AI will be free of bias since it will be humans that program it. And if "Humans are guided by desire to survive, not ethics" what makes you think that AI would design in our best interest? If we wanted it to, we would have to program it to be moral, to have certain values, to be altruistic... Yes it is cool, yes there may be many great applications for AI out there, but architecture may not be one of them because architecture is and always will be a scientifically guided art form. Even if an alien AI was to design something it will carry the bias of whatever race it is from.
2030 reverse engineering of the human brain will be complete. AI will surpass traditional humans. Transhumanism mediating AI - this will go on for a while.
that is not technocratic its the reality of adaptation.
genetic algorithms tends to gravitate towards local optima. Who is to decide when and if a local optimum is a global optimum?
Is that the engineer pessimism we're hearing? You can use population-based hybrid genetic algorithm coupled with individual learning procedures capable of performing local refinements. Its never meant to be an inflexible totalitarian system.
superficially speaking, you are generally correct, a-f. parametrics for optimization, WHEN given fuzzy parameters end up giving fuzzy results.
As to the choice of random numbers:
RNGs are generally use a microtime function. it basically grabs a range of numbers from the current time in seconds/microseconds/lower even? depending on how you set up your code.
the thing is, the same time-dependent issues are propagated throughout the whole system. assuming that you are made of matter and say.. not fairy dust or jluddite elf blood or whatever else.. you are governed by laws of physics that cannot be modified in a non-deterministic fashion. Your so-called decision to chose a parameter or code or line to draw or anything else is driven by a set of complex physical equations that result in that one outcome. this is why the transhumanist argument is relevant to design, especially when technology is concerned.
none the less, for any given time at execution, in a specific hardware configuration, there is only one possible outcome.
--
also, jlarch, please learn to use linebreaks. im not reading through that garbage.
2030 would refer to the idea of Kurzweil's singularity I guess? Not a completely undisputed theory. But I think there are two issues here, and I think to tie it back to the original question of tammuz. Let's assume that singularity occurs 2030 - is it even interesting for architecture or any other form of art? Even if 90% of our working hours is devoted to solving specific problems, many of the constraints are set up by ourselves. The factors that influence our decisions when weighing cost against form or material or whatever is something that would differ from person to person. Most likely the solutions would be different, and impossible to label more or less "fit" to the context in comparison to each other. For the shape of a plane wing, yes. Architecture is quite arbitray in comparison. And that's ok for me.
Let's assume that singularity occurs 2030 - is it even interesting for architecture or any other form of art?
absolutely, nearly every professional field relies on computational models.
Computationally speaking, parametrics is a potent route of artificiality, since the use of machine language enables people to understand/simulate/visualize what traditional human brains can't all by themselves. There really is too much data.
to answer what Nam asked,
Anything with people is artificial yes, and we will become more artificial.
My take on biomimetics is mostly to do with optimization/making buildings more efficient, and the reality that energy systems are in for an overhaul, not so much ethics. It's impossible for me do that without computation. So while Tom Wiscombe's take on biomimetics may not be interesting for some. Within the broader umbrella of computation, metabolic systems have parameters to fit into, especially for realities in design and construction.
Making two possibilities a reality
Predicting the future of things we all know
Fighting off the diseased programming
Of centuries, centuries, centuries, centuries
Science fails to recognize the single most
Potent element of human existence
Letting the reigns go to the unfolding
Is faith, faith, faith, faith
Science has failed our world
Science has failed our Mother Earth
Spirit moves through all things
Spirit moves through all things
Spirit moves through all things
Science and Religion are both very powerful and useful maps. But like all maps, they are abstractions and are thus incomplete descriptions. Both are necessary to get a fuller understanding of the territory.
the ethics of parametricism/emergent architectural thought and reification
you discard what you can't understand. or are too lazy to attempt to understand.
HEY! Take your boring and stupid argument somewhere else. You both (and few others) sound like bad sports fans who have not brought up anything valuable to this conversation and readers.
You have so far ruined a great thread started and participated by few intelligent people.
This thread was doomed from the beginning with its misplaced take on nature and computation. It's vague approach to theory as a terrain for the "unknowable nature of people" was used as an ethical witchunt against artificiality.
messy discussion, yes. ruined thread?... thanks for contributing.
i r giv up is just trolling. Don't pay any attention.
white fang, although I may have raised a question regarding ethics, i certainly am not interested in "an ethical witchunt against artificiality".
I am interested in artificiality, both architecturally and other. However, I would think that parametricism if anything isn't about artificiality. No more so then architecture designed using some other methodology/toolkit. Any building is artificial in some sense also, right? Perhaps, if we think of biomimetics as just organic architecture than no. Otherwise, can one escape an idea of artificial when talking about architecture?
Even Rachel Armstrong's Living Architecture of engineered "living systems" - and smart chemistry is artificial right?
Now in terms of computer, parametrics, or algorithmic / scripted design methods as a formal exercise, in terms of questions of aesthetics or beauty as was mentioned earlier, i can get on board with artificiality in a generative sense. My real concern is not in terms of beauty or form, but the reality of building.
it is unfortunate that most have not understood the point, or the sentiment, here. there is a certain checkpoint that seems to have disclosed how simplistic many of the contributers' (certainly not all) views are. i have specified my approach repetitively (perhaps i should have labelled the thread "an ethical interrogation into the semiotics of parametric/emergent design"). it is unfortunate that, instead of an inquisitive debate, this community has predominantly regurgitated traditional cliche's. yes, the notion of the artifical being on par with the natural has been rendered a cliche' here as has the notion of artificial as being the opposing counterpoint to the natural. would it not be more interesting to bring the assumptions behind these beliefs out to light? instead it seems many here are restricting themselves to the past up to a point or to the present up to a point. instead, we hear the vitriolic babble of the parametric regime'se self appointed SS squad.
i've been leafing throug the schumacher books and the weinstock/menges/hensel latest book. they've been informative, in different but complementary ways. i can see that my approach has validity; i feel schumacher's semiotic reading of parametricism is not incisive enough and i suspect that what he , very probably, takes for an indexical signification (he doesn't call it that, but his description of the effect of the program making itself read through the building proper is highly suggestive of the indexical effect) masks aspects of other figurative effects - but, more importantly, by suggesting the indexical, he wishes to insiduously convince one of the inevitability not only of the parametric(ist?) building but as well of parametric design as an approach. in short, he extends towards the logic of science metaphorically in order to endow the choice for such a design process with nuances of incontigency. this is made more clear in envisaging the role of science with respect to design: design is not (an art or a) science but, yet, it is informed by science (and the implication here is not the technology of the building construction or even solely that of the building design process, but the logic of science informing the logic of design- herein there is a mediated association, not an indexical one).
the weinstock and co book is necessarily less sophisticated in delving into the reasons for this association. they are not philosophers of the trade, unlike schumacher who has a philosophy background and their's is not a manifesto but more of a textbook presented in an engineering-science format, there is a near complete oblivion to the boundary between both sides of the equation.
so, more succinctly, it is not the ethics of, or lack thereof, parametric architecture or even parametric design that is or was the point here even if there is a derivative implication. rather, more primarily, the intellectual integrity, the ethics of thought, underlying this choice of design process.
Ethics is integral to this process. Ethics determines the parameters. Parametric design is not objective and neutral. The input is always biased. it is impossible to seperate parameters from "ethics." The problem that I have with much of the jargon from the parametric crowd is that they seem to believe that parametrics results in a more scientific or rational truth. All of our cultural and personal biases will not be filtered out through a parametric process, instead, I think that they are often magnified by this process.
-
For now, human agency via the market determines parameters. Humans are guided by desire to survive, not ethics.
Ethics is a fuzzy territory framed by politics and collective society, something which should be handed over to AI. If you want to deal with ethics, go into politics or religion.
PS
The only thing being magnified is the paranoid luddite inside you.
So, ethics is a territory in the social and political sphere but doesn't guide humans? Is parametricism the missing link between Mill's homo economicus and soviet-style technocracy? Nothing new under the sun, then.
Whoops.
let's play the point by point game, see if you can follow through:
Ethics is integral to this process. Ethics determines the parameters.
no. physics determines the parameters. there could only be one outcome. what part of humans not being made of fairy dust are you unable to comperehend?
Parametric design is not objective and neutral.
Irrelevant. Objective and neutral are pretty archaic conceptual constructs. You should know better than to use them in an intellectual discussion. Shaped by perception? is that what you mean? Then alright. Everything is. Thanks for stating the obvious.
The input is always biased.
See above.
it is impossible to seperate parameters from "ethics."
Huh? See the first point reply.
The problem that I have with much of the jargon from the parametric crowd is that they seem to believe that parametrics results in a more scientific or rational truth.
Actually, the the main problem you seem to have is that you refuse to address the basic points that undermine your assumptions. Strong parametrics borrow a lot from agent-based modeling, artificial intelligence systems and other computer science theory works, you never address any of those in a specific, concrete fashion. You just keep screaming "ethics, ethics" instead of engaging in a smart discussion.
All of our cultural and personal biases will not be filtered out through a parametric process, instead, I think that they are often magnified by this process.
And how is that a bad thing? and how could it have been any different?
There could be only *one* outcome? But genetic algorithms (as a subset of AI optimization computation) tends to gravitate towards local optima. Who is to decide when and if a local optimum is a global optimum?
Is there also an optimum piece of art, a book, a movie in every specific context?
not talking about optimality. taking about outcomes. given that even genetic algorithms work make use of pseudo-random number generators, the outcome is pretty much fixed at the time of execution.
Sure, but the outcome is supposed to be the optimum of all possible outcomes. With problems complex enough the amount of possible outcomes are simply too many. Random number generators are used as a kind of search optimization method in genetic algorithms, but since it's not possible to know before hand how many optimum solutions there are, you would never know if the result is indeed a global optimum. To illustrate: if you use other random numbers initially, you might get a better result. So how do you chose your random numbers?
... or, if the (optimum) outcome is fixed at the time of execution by means of choosing random numbers, what happened to the scientific approach?
For now, human agency via the market determines parameters. Humans are guided by desire to survive, not ethics. Maybe why all the parametric architecture that I see is shallow. You are all so caught up in the wordy archi-talk that you can't even answer the basics. no. physics determines the parameters. there could only be one outcome. what part of humans not being made of fairy dust are you unable to comperehend? We are still talking about architecture right? The parameters are determined by the programmer correct? If so, that programmer must define those parameters. Every programmer will define the parameters differently based on what he/she thinks is important to the design. What that person thinks is important is a result of their world views, ethics, politics, etc. Architecture is always political. The outcome is the result of those parameters which are always biased. Because of this parametric design cannot be neutral and therefore it is not science it is design that is informed by scientific principals which is fine. If the author is a souless cog we will get a souless project (calm down not talking about soul in a religious sense more like in a musical sense) which is what most of it looks like to me architectural techno? Actually, the the main problem you seem to have is that you refuse to address the basic points that undermine your assumptions. Strong parametrics borrow a lot from agent-based modeling, artificial intelligence systems and other computer science theory works, you never address any of those in a specific, concrete fashion. You just keep screaming "ethics, ethics" instead of engaging in a smart discussion Lets talk about AI since you bring it up. Is AI artificial? I would say no- nothing is artificial, it's all just different arrangements of atoms... So I have nothing ethically wrong with any of this, but It is pretty foolish to assume that AI will be free of bias since it will be humans that program it. And if "Humans are guided by desire to survive, not ethics" what makes you think that AI would design in our best interest? If we wanted it to, we would have to program it to be moral, to have certain values, to be altruistic... Yes it is cool, yes there may be many great applications for AI out there, but architecture may not be one of them because architecture is and always will be a scientifically guided art form. Even if an alien AI was to design something it will carry the bias of whatever race it is from.
-
2030 reverse engineering of the human brain will be complete. AI will surpass traditional humans. Transhumanism mediating AI - this will go on for a while.
that is not technocratic its the reality of adaptation.
genetic algorithms tends to gravitate towards local optima. Who is to decide when and if a local optimum is a global optimum?
Is that the engineer pessimism we're hearing? You can use population-based hybrid genetic algorithm coupled with individual learning procedures capable of performing local refinements. Its never meant to be an inflexible totalitarian system.
....ignoring jla-x
wrote this but went afk:
superficially speaking, you are generally correct, a-f. parametrics for optimization, WHEN given fuzzy parameters end up giving fuzzy results.
As to the choice of random numbers:
RNGs are generally use a microtime function. it basically grabs a range of numbers from the current time in seconds/microseconds/lower even? depending on how you set up your code.
the thing is, the same time-dependent issues are propagated throughout the whole system. assuming that you are made of matter and say.. not fairy dust or jluddite elf blood or whatever else.. you are governed by laws of physics that cannot be modified in a non-deterministic fashion. Your so-called decision to chose a parameter or code or line to draw or anything else is driven by a set of complex physical equations that result in that one outcome. this is why the transhumanist argument is relevant to design, especially when technology is concerned.
none the less, for any given time at execution, in a specific hardware configuration, there is only one possible outcome.
--
also, jlarch, please learn to use linebreaks. im not reading through that garbage.
2030 would refer to the idea of Kurzweil's singularity I guess? Not a completely undisputed theory. But I think there are two issues here, and I think to tie it back to the original question of tammuz. Let's assume that singularity occurs 2030 - is it even interesting for architecture or any other form of art? Even if 90% of our working hours is devoted to solving specific problems, many of the constraints are set up by ourselves. The factors that influence our decisions when weighing cost against form or material or whatever is something that would differ from person to person. Most likely the solutions would be different, and impossible to label more or less "fit" to the context in comparison to each other. For the shape of a plane wing, yes. Architecture is quite arbitray in comparison. And that's ok for me.
90% of my working hours are spent doing busy-work that leads to something larger.
if i can shrink that to 50% of my working hours, i can tackle a whole lot more interesting subjects at the same time.
Let's assume that singularity occurs 2030 - is it even interesting for architecture or any other form of art?
absolutely, nearly every professional field relies on computational models.
Computationally speaking, parametrics is a potent route of artificiality, since the use of machine language enables people to understand/simulate/visualize what traditional human brains can't all by themselves. There really is too much data.
to answer what Nam asked,
Anything with people is artificial yes, and we will become more artificial.
My take on biomimetics is mostly to do with optimization/making buildings more efficient, and the reality that energy systems are in for an overhaul, not so much ethics. It's impossible for me do that without computation. So while Tom Wiscombe's take on biomimetics may not be interesting for some. Within the broader umbrella of computation, metabolic systems have parameters to fit into, especially for realities in design and construction.
Making two possibilities a reality Predicting the future of things we all know Fighting off the diseased programming Of centuries, centuries, centuries, centuries
Science fails to recognize the single most Potent element of human existence Letting the reigns go to the unfolding Is faith, faith, faith, faith
Science has failed our world Science has failed our Mother Earth
Spirit moves through all things Spirit moves through all things Spirit moves through all things
-Serj Tankian
ok thats pessimistic
haha, quoting system of a down.
what is this i don't even.
also, religion is part of the domain of science, stop playing the non-overlaping magisteria card. only stupid people do that.
ITT: a cautionary tale of scientism run amok.
ok boogeymen. problems of technology, deeply interwoven with society cannot be solved without technology.
..still reading over tammuz, Is he saying parametrics is not rigorous enough
"the logic of science informing the logic of design- herein there is a mediated association, not an indexical one" tammuz
Science and Religion are both very powerful and useful maps. But like all maps, they are abstractions and are thus incomplete descriptions. Both are necessary to get a fuller understanding of the territory.
maybe the answer lies in scientology,
no thanks...not gonna go the religious route.
maybe, depending on what the question is. :)
did you just say religion is necessary?
hand me a burkah right now.
nope.
there's no questions religion can answer.
thank you come again.
You sound pretty sure of yourself.
lets leave religion out of this. dude
:)
No problem. I'm done.
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