digitaldust

The submission for next months Computational Turn workshop was accepted. Will be an interesting event with both Lev Manovich and Katherine Hayles presiding over it.

Analysis Tool or Design Methodology? Is There an Epistemological Basis of Patterns?

The idea of patterns as a means of inquiry seems to be increasing in popularity, in many different ways, across many different disciplines. Partly this has to do with new tools and techniques which allow us to discover, analyse or visualise patterns, and partly from our long history of systems thinking. Though the concept of patterns and pattern recognition are not new and have been strong across the 20th century, from structuralism, through cybernetics and into complex systems theory.

However there is no robust epistemology for justifying what they are, how they are used and in what context they are interpreted. Also there are few comparisons or linkages between different disciplines use of them.

This position paper asks questions about what patterns fundamentally are, whilst also providing a pragmatic epistemological basis for using them founded in the interventionist practice of action research. Problems concerning the abductive reasoning process and apophenic outcomes are also highlighted.