"An electrical current is really a river of electrons, and each one of the millions of tiny decision-making boxes inside a computer chip is like a sluice gate controlling whether electrons will flow through it. So a computer chip is a giant electron irrigation project laid out on a nearly flat plane, with microscopic hydraulic plants, wells, water tanks, and pumps, and millions of canals and sluice gates--enormous complexity working at enormous speeds and tucked into an enormously small space" (p.28)
Hillis (The Pattern on the Stone, 1998) uses a similar metaphor:
"The picture I have in my mind when I design a logic circuit is of hydraulic valves. A hydraulic valve is like a switch that controls and is controlled by the flow of water. Each valve has three connections: the input, the output, and the control. Pressure on the control connection pushes the piston that turns off the water flow from input to output". (p. 13)
An irrigation project works because natural forces of gravity press the water through the gates and ditches. Technology in this case consists of pre-arranging the paths by which the water flows. The same is true in a computer.
I take this as a pattern for all of technology. When human intention is exercised in any way to influence the flow of natural forces, I call that the application of technology.
This notion has immense implications that are lost on many technologists. And since design is the way we decide how to make those impositions of our will on natural forces, I believe that designers should make this understanding the beginning point of their cogitations on design.
Interesting thoughts on the designer's intentions. So, if this is truly the case, then it is in the designer's best interest to ensure a sound understanding of nature, and what forces are at play, very early in the design process. Then the rest is just experimentation (the fun part) to see what kind of technology can be developed. This seems very akin to learning the rules of a game, then with that understanding, searching for the best way to ensure victory - or successful design, and the resulting technology.
ReplyDeleteBack when I was a student (the tuition paying kind, not simply the life long learning kind) I came to the same conclusion when trying to differentiate between science and technology. Science is the study of what is true in nature, and technology is putting that knowledge to work towards ends which are favored by the designer.
ReplyDeleteBTW - while reading the Rawlins quote I couldn't help but think how much a circuit-board (especially older ones) physically looks like an irrigation system with "hydraulic plants, wells, [and] water tanks."
I remember when I was one of your students and you spoke of these ideas in class. Funny, I remembered it being referred to more in a learning theory way; a student's learning is like the irrigation process, the force and direction of their learning, and we, as teachers or designers, help to control and direct that flow. Did you apply it this way also, or was this my own interpretation at the time?
ReplyDeleteI find that, even as a mother and housewife, the design process is still at work; ie. as you said in your comment above . . . we learn the rules (or in some cases artificially establish them ourselves within a structure), and then, experiment . . . the rules of the game and then search for the way to ensure victory!