Pattern 240 - Half Inch Trim

It's a kind of bible of architecture, A Pattern Language came out in 1977, and in over 1,000 pages codifies the language of the built environment, or how it ought to be. It's a guide to livable cities and livable buildings. Maybe it's a bit Cali-centric, with all it's recommendations for outdoor space design, but it serves nonetheless as a builder's guide to making nice places to be in. 

The book is over 1,000 pages, and not until page 1,112 do we see Pattern 240 - Half Inch Trim. It is the most beautiful, simple, and airtight explanation in the whole book.

Pattern 240 - Half Inch Trim

Totalitarian, machine buildings do not require trim because they are precise enough to do without. But they buy their precision at a dreadful price: by killing the possibility of freedom in the building plan. 

A free and natural building cannot be conceived without the possibility of finishing it with trim, to cover up the minor variations which have arisen in the plan, and during its construction. p1112

The principle goes on to explain that it is essential that cuts be inaccurate within a half-inch or so, to avoid waste, but also to allow subtle adaptations.

And it goes on to explain why the modern practice of using precision building components is a bad idea:

"This one aspect of construction has by itself destroyed the builder's capacity to make a building which is natural, organic, and adapted to the site." p1113

But this is not the real argument for Half Inch Trim. The real argument is more deeply psychological, and underlies a quantitative, and universal, feature of aesthetic sensibility:

Our own bodies and the natural surroundings in which we evolved contain a continuous hierarchy of details, ranging all the way from the molecular fine structure to gross features like arms and legs (in our own bodies) and trunks and branches (in our natural surroundings).

We know from results in cognitive psychology that any one step in this hierarchy can be no more than 1:5, 1:7, or 1:10 if we are to perceive it as a natural hierarchy. We cannot understand a hierarchy in which there is a jump in scale of 1:20 or more. It is this fact which makes it necessary for our surroundings, even when man-made, to display a similar continuum of detail. 

Most materials have some kind of natural fibrous or crystalline structure at the scale of about 1/20 inch. But if the smallest building detail dimensions are of the order of 2 or 3 inches, this leaves a jump of 1:40 or 1:60 between these details and the fine structure of the material. ... [and 1/20 inch is 1:10 to a half inch] p1114-1115

Notes:
A Pattern Language - Towns, Buildings, Construction
Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, Murray Silverstein. Oxford University Press. New York. 1977.

Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact - A Review

Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact
Ludwig Fleck, 1935 (Switzerland)
Edited by Thaddeus J. Trenn and Robert K. Merton
Translated by Fred Bradley and Thaddeus J. Trenn
Foreword by Thomas S. Kuhn
Published by University of Chicago, 1979

I'm sure lots of things were said, since this work did reach a crescendo in the 60's - 70's along with Kuhn's Revolutions. Nonetheless, that was almost 50 years ago, and so many passages of this text conjure visions of contemporary phenomena.

I'll start with a basic overview, then a glimpse at a critical component of his theory called the Thought Collective, and some technical and editorial details. Successive posts will present a kind of functional analysis, and a good look at how Fleck's theory manifests in sociological phenomena like the Greta Garbo effect and of course, perennial favorite at Network Address, viral memetics.

But first...

On the Development of Syphilis as an Idea
This entire book is about Fleck following the "facts" of Syphilis as they evolved, starting with the most fanciful explanations, sometimes outright astrological, and ending with a test for the disease that couldn't have been developed without massive changes in the collective understanding of how the disease works in the body.

"Theoretical and practical elements, the a priori and the purely empirical, mingled with one another according to the rules not of logic but of psychology." (p5) (!!) 

If you are familiar with Kuhn's Revolutions, then you have an idea of what Fleck is talking about. Kuhn "serendipitously" found this book, which he later credited for much of his thinking. This book got no mention beyond its initial and limited reviews in the 1930's, and wasn't discovered until the 1960's, and by Kuhn, who sent it (and Fleck's idea of thought collectives) into the general public by the 70's.

-image source: Michael K Richardson 1998 embryo drawings 

The Life Cycle of a Fact

Fleck has provided a theory of knowledge whereby tentative pre-ideas can develop into scientific facts by means of a  process of collectivization. Fleck analyzes the development of syphilis from the Middle Ages to the Wasserman Reaction in the early 20th century. The fact has a life-cycle:

1. Vague visual perception and inadequate initial observation.
2. An irrational, concept-forming and style-converting state of experience.
3. Developed, reproducible and stylized visual perception of form. (p94)

Notes On Translation

• Thought Style - (from the German Denkstil, this word invented by Karl Manheim 1925)
• Thought Collective - (from German Denkkollektiv, and much consternation over the choice of collective vs community and their difference in meaning, especially at that time in history, i.e., Communism) 

Fleck describes or makes the exception for certain people who have a strong personal thought style, within themselves, he participates in several thought collectives, a "marginal man"

Fleck mentions the words collective imagination and thought collective but never the word Noosphere. ~p83

"Thought style is the readiness for directed perception." (p143 and elsewhere)

Science itself is a specialized thought style: "Good work done according to style, instantly awakens a corresponding mood of solidarity in the reader." (p145)

-image source: George Romane 1892 embryo drawings attr to Ernst Haeckel

Notes On the Thought Collective

"The conceptual creations of science, like other works of the mind, become acccepted as fact through a complex process of social consolidation." (Trenn, preface, p xiii)

"Without social conditioning no cognition is even possible." (p43)

"Knowledge exists in the collective, and it is always being revised." (p95)

In other words: Knowledge is a social creation. 

Thinking is a social activity. It does not exist apart from the thought collective that guides it. The way a thought collective thinks is called a thought style, and these are its features:

• related to problems of interest to a thought collective
• evolved by what the thought collective considers evident
• tested by methods which the thought collective applies as a means of cognition (p99)

"Thought style is the readiness for directed perception." (p143 and elsewhere)

Science itself is a specialized thought style: "Good work done according to style, instantly awakens a corresponding mood of solidarity in the reader." (p145)

Thought collectives are referred to as a "harmony of illusions" (ch2 sec3) which sound a lot like filter bubbles or echo chambers.

Post Script - The Duck Rabbit Illusion

When looking at the Duck/Rabbit, we see the duck or the rabbit, but not the lines on the page ... the lines are not the facts that make the duck or the rabbit. (Kuhn, Foreword)

Error, Objectivity, and Collective Psychology as Professional Habit

Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery, Hans Van Meegeren forging Johannes Vermeer, 1942

Greta Garbo, circa 1942

Let's start with these pictures above, and a quick story about the greatest forgery in history. One picture is Greta Garbo, one of the most well-known stars of classic cinema, circa 1930's. You could also refer to her as one of the most publicized women in the world at that time. Also, look at her eye makeup.

The other picture is a forgery of a Vermeer painting. The painting never existed, so it's not just a fake copy; it's totally made-up. The guy who made it up was Hans van Meegeren. He fooled the entire art world with this painting. Everybody, experts, everybody.

I'm an art history major, I recognize that. But you don't have to be; look at that painting -- look at Jesus. Look at those eyes. Chiaroscuro like a mf. And now look at Greta Garbo. Look at her eyes.

You don't have to be an expert to see this. At the dawn of celebrity culture, she was recognized by the world over, and so was her makeup. That was how people looked at that time. It was all around you. You didn't think about it because you were in it, immersed, consumed. Van Meegeren was immersed in it, and so were the art historians and critics who validated his painting as a lost masterpiece of Vermeer.

Why is it so easy for you and I to see this as a total sham? Because we don't live in 1930. We don't live in a world where Greta Garbo is really popular, and where everyone's eye makeup looks like  that. We therefore notice the uncanny similarity.

Today, we know this painting is a forgery. It took a long time, first to figure it out, then to finally admit it. But now it's pretty damn obvious. And the greatest forgery in history should leave you wondering how this is even possible, that so many people could be so blind... . I can't say it better than this guy:

“There is one time-related art historical principle that VanMeegeren could not account for or combat – namely, the fact that works of art often bear the stamp, the characteristics of their own era. [Because of these tendencies for contemporary features to creep into forgeries] the style of VanMeegeren’s paintings is like that of Vermeer only superficially. The important resemblances to such Symbolist artists as Toorop are much more important. Characteristics that mark an era may be those that are most universally appreciated at that time. They seem also to be the qualities that become “dated” most quickly. The generation for which these qualities are in fashion tends to be blind to them, but to the next generation they may become painfully evident. This is certainly true of the VanMeegerens. What was lauded in the 1930’s looks superficial and thin in the 1980’s. No doubt we are as blind to the telltale appearance of our own taste and fashions in contemporary forgeries.” (p2)

-1. Rudolph Arnheim, “On Duplication”, pp232-245
-2. Hope B. Werness, “Han VanMeegeren fecit” pp1-57
in The Forger’s Art: Forgery and the Philosophy of Art
Denis Dutton, ed.
Berkeley, 1983

***

Consider this phenomena -- it is possible, and perhaps common or even expected, that we are blind to things that are actually all around us. Such that the more prevalent something is, the more blind we would be to it. This is true in art, but also in science. And this is where we come back to Ludwig Fleck, as he explores the process by which knowledge is created.

Comparing visual descriptions of bacteria cultures from different scientists, author Ludwig Fleck outlines the development of the idea of Streptococci, and of epidemiology in general:

1. The material offering itself by accident (hmmm, what's this?).
2. The psychological mood determining the direction of the investigation (well that is some crazy sh**!).
3. The associations motivated by collective psychology, that is, professional habits (Tim from accounting says this sounds like some crazy sh**).
4. The irreproducible "initial" observation, which cannot be clearly seen in retrospect (what the heck, why can't I do that again?).
5. The slow and laboring revelation and awareness of "what one actually sees" or the gaining of experience (ahhh, now I see...).
6. That what has been revealed and concisely summarized in a scientific statement is an artificial structure, related but only genetically so, both to the original intention and to the substance of the "first" observation need not even belong to the same class as that of the facts it led toward (p89)

In other words, what you discover isn't a resolution to your initial anomalous observation, but in the process, you discover something useful nonetheless.

***

Again, using comparative descriptions of an organism in a petri dish by different scientists, Fleck enumerates the errors in the description:

1. Assumptions are already incorporated within the choice and limitation of the object of investigation.
2. It is altogether pointless to speak of all the characteristics of a structure. ... and it depends on the habits of thought of the given scientific discipline.

He concludes that observation without assumption is impossible.

But he does focus on two types observation apparently worth investigating:
1. The vague initial visual perception.
2. The developed direct visual perception of a form (which requires being experienced in the relevant field of thought, yet at the same time we lose the ability to see something that contradicts the form). (p91-92)

So there is something about the curse of wisdom that inhibits us from seeing things that don't fit into our schema, even if and especially if they are new things, new observations that might even contradict our theory.

***

Before we leave this, I have to relate it to a moment in Jared Diamond's 1997 book Guns, Germs, and Steel. It's a book but also a film by PBS. The book talks about seemingly small facts, such as the difference in protein per gram for rice vs wheat, or the difference in the predominance of a land mass to be east-west vs north-south, or the distribution of medium-sized domesticable animals throughout the regions of the world. These things make the Fertile Crescent, and then Western Europe, and the Americas, to be the top of the global food chain. It's not because they're better or smarter; it's because of initial conditions that snowball over time to put one place on a wildly different trajectory compared to others.

Kind of unrelated to this thesis, there is a moment in the film where the indigenous people of the New World see Christopher Columbus's ships approaching on the horizon. Only they don't actually see them. They have never seen a ship, not like this, and so they actually can't see it. A shaman among them is the only one who can see it, because that's what shamans do (and that's what artists do), they see things that barely even exist yet, and prepare their people. The shaman tells the people what it is, and all of the sudden they can see it.

This moment is similar to the one Fleck describes above, the process of acquiring knowledge, the genesis and development of a fact.

And let's end with a quote that's hard to resist in this context:

"In science, just as in art and in life, only that which is true to culture is true to nature." (p35)

Notes:
Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact.
Ludwig Fleck, 1935 (Switzerland).
Edited by Thaddeus J. Trenn and Robert K. Merton
Translated by Fred Bradley and Thaddeus J. Trenn
Foreword by Thomas S. Kuhn
Published by University of Chicago, 1979

On Hindsight and Blindness
Network Address, 2012
https://networkaddress.blogspot.com/2012/12/on-hindsight-and-blindness.html