Frontiers of Architectural Research >
Circular causality and indeterminism in machines for design
Received date: 29 Sep 2014
Accepted date: 16 Jun 2014
Published date: 07 Jan 2015
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Presenting a hard-to-predict typography-varying system predicated on Nazi-era cryptography, the Enigma cipher machine, this paper illustrates conditions under which unrepeatable phenomena can arise, even from straight-forward mechanisms. Such conditions arise where systems are observed from outside of boundaries that arise through their observation, and where such systems refer to themselves in a circular fashion. It argues that the Enigma cipher machine is isomorphous with Heinz von Foersters portrayals of non-triviality in his non-trivial machine (NTM), but not with surprising human behaviour, and it demonstrates that the NTM does not account for spontaneity as it is observed in humans in general.
Key words: System boundaries; Design; Predictability; Enigma
Thomas Fischer . Circular causality and indeterminism in machines for design[J]. Frontiers of Architectural Research, 2014 , 3(4) : 368 -375 . DOI: 10.1016/j.foar.2014.06.003
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