What do I distinguish when I distinguish value? Applying the theory of logical types to explore how value arises in our designs

Abstract

Concepts of value are increasingly important to our designs in both the private and public sectors. But what are we to make of so many different concepts? Is there a relationship between them? And how are we to teach about value when the subject seems so nebulous and foreign to our traditional concerns? The primary objective of this paper is to show that a simple structure underlies concepts of value, and that instances of this structure already exist in engineering. The theory of logical types, initially presented by Bertrand Russell as a fundamental principle in mathematical logic, and later used by Gregory Bateson to explain scientific phenomena, applies equally well to engineering. The paper uses the theory to explore value in two general cases, one in which we engineer to fulfil a goal, and the other in which we seek to make use of a resource. Examples are used to explore how value arises and common errors by which it is diminished. The paper concludes with examples of how the material has been taught.

Notes

This article includes a word which is or is asserted to be a proprietary term or trade mark. Its inclusion does not imply it has acquired for legal purposes a non-proprietary or general significance, nor is any other judgment implied concerning its legal status.

J. Jacobs (1992) makes an interesting distinction between two systems of values, one associated with commercial activities and the other associated with ‘guardian’ (governmental and non-governmental agency) activities. Jacobs shows that, whilst the systems can live side by side, injecting values from one system into the other leads to intractable difficulties.

Time allows paradoxical elements to exist simultaneously in different parts of the same system. Bateson gave the example of a door buzzer, which contains both ‘on’ and ‘off’ signals in different parts of the circuit. He posed that it would be of value for someone to create the formal proofs for the analogy.

The theory of logical types is often stated as ‘a class cannot be a member of itself’. However, it is more insightful for our purposes to think in terms of propositions classifying values.

This conclusion may seem counter-intuitive without a little thought. If we find a list on the street, it is largely without context. If that list reads apples, apricots and anchovies, we do not know if it refers to edibles starting with the letter ‘a’, a shopping list for supper tonight, or something different. In the first example, a list of Plutonians cannot indicate what proposition generated it, and, in the second example, the numbers in the braces cannot say their significance.

Bateson made a distinction between learning (response to a stimulus), learning about learning (discovering contexts for distinguishing between responses) and learning about learning about learning. Explanations for learning are different at each level, but this can only be appreciated by distinguishing levels.

First-order change happens within a system. Second-order change changes the system itself. Thus, first-order change and second-order change are of different logical types.

Certain buildings seem to have been constructed around the concept that form follows fun. C. T. Mitchell (1993: xi) tells of a public housing project designed in 1951 and destroyed in 1972 at the request of the inhabitants due to the total unsuitability of the building in meeting the needs of those living there. He wrote, ‘… instructors in my architecture school informed students that the architectural design of Pruitt-Igoe had not really been a failure at all but instead had simply been the subject of an ill-informed media attack … the residents were not sophisticated enough to live in an award-winning building’. Clearly, the users of the design defined value in one way, and the architects in another.

R. Fritz (1999) came to the conclusion that we are rarely driven by real vision. For a corporation, he starts with ‘what would motivate your customers to buy your product?’ This vision is essentially the same as the second level of the ‘survival and growth’ vision—bringing energy (money) into the system.