It’s not worth a lot to build a skyscraper: knowledge and skills are enough. The idea of ​​such a building is worth a lot, which can be implemented in any climatic conditions with possible tectonic movements of the earth's crust: knowledge and skills will be clearly insufficient under these (only two!), But radically significant conditions.
It is doubtful that a person will decide on the conceptual design of such an idea. There are unique technical solutions that in different countries of the world different experts implemented in buildings, bridges, telecommunications facilities and other complex structures. All this is in demand in a particular place for a specific purpose and is designed for specific conditions of use.
Statics and dynamics of systems
Modern conceptual design is static. The conditions for applying the results of human intellectual activity are always dynamics. The intellectual activity of man itself is a continuous development (dynamics).
Today, the level of science, technology and knowledge is too low to create dynamic systems. If a person is designing an airplane: this is at least a motor and two wings. If you create a prestigious car, then the car will have a leather interior and four wheels. There is no need to talk about submarines, fighter jets and spaceships: inertia and a rigid structure make them vulnerable to any dynamic, not necessarily “intellectual”, projectile.
Each new technical system is better than the previous one. It absorbs the experience of creating predecessors, eliminates earlier mistakes and miscalculations. We are used to putting up with the static results of human intellectual activity: there is no other way. Mistakes in the conceptual design of new technical, social and other systems are no longer accepted.
Any design is a spiraling dynamic process that adaptively takes into account previously achieved knowledge and skills, determines changes in the field of application and focuses on reasonable consumer requirements.
Collection and analysis of information
Not only man, but any living creature observes and collects information. Consciously or subconsciously - it does not matter. Only as a result of the analysis of the perceived data and their “understanding” through the prism of accumulated experience (knowledge and skills) does the situation analyze and make a decision.
A person has developed many methods and tools for collecting and analyzing information, but it is pointless to single out this process as a stage, for example, data preparation or preliminary design. A person consciously perceives information and makes decisions, considering current goals and objectives. A person subconsciously performs much more actions and, ultimately, it is the subconscious that pushes consciousness to the formation of the correct behavior and the execution of a specific action.
The collection and analysis of information is the beginning of a social or technical system. This is a concept in itself of the beginning of work. Primary information is always collected and studied in the context of the goal and tasks being solved. Always secondary information reflects all the same goals and objectives. Each new stage is a conceptual design in a new round of development of knowledge about what has been achieved and is being achieved: about the goal and tasks to be solved.
Statics and Rigid Construction
Man does not always attach objective significance to his activity. The point is not that he does not strive for this, he just often sets himself some goals, but achieves others. Conceptual design has always existed, but people “consciously” reacted to this only with the advent of computer technology and programming.
Meanwhile, associations: “concept = information system” do not exist. In any case: this is evidenced by the current state of affairs.
A simple example. Organization electronic document management system. How many years such systems were created? How many such systems have been developed? How many scientific conferences have taken place, copies have been broken, have papers been written out? To this day, not one of the results of the “conceptual design” of workflow systems has been held as conceptually implemented.
Hard constructions of syntax and semantics of programming languages. A clear understanding is that man is not able to formalize the dynamics of the field of application and the problem to be solved: knowledge and skills are clearly not enough. Result: any model of formalizing the scope and the required task is converted to a static structure.
The modern world of virtual technology is not much different from the Pyramid of Cheops. It is extremely difficult to change anything in the created information system. Any change is fraught with significant costs of third-party labor (developer, programmer, author): the information system itself can’t do anything for itself.
The objective laws of the physical world
Natural conceptual design, as an example of creating an ideal system, has always existed. There is a difference between what a person does and what he understands. The Cheops Pyramid is not alone in its execution. Almost a kilometer of “elegant” reinforced concrete structures: the Burj Khalifa skyscraper in Dubai (UAE) is not the only high-rise structure. There are many similar examples: natural conceptual design is peculiar to man, and man demonstrates this in parallel in different regions of the planet in various areas of social, industrial and spiritual practice.
Any painting of the icon in the temple, made on a spherical surface, but perceived voluminously and, of course, from anywhere in this temple, was created many times by various experts at different times.
The Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ), one of the notable achievements of the last century, was performed by one person, but attracted the attention of numerous experts who developed and used it in real practice.
TRIZ is an ideal example of modern conceptual design, started by one person and developed by many people, but not reached the objectively possible, conceptual level of development.
TRIZ is a notable, but not monumental achievement. Altshuller, Shapiro and thousands of their followers contributed to the theory, practice and inventive business, but the result is “insignificant”: followers and copyright holders, fantastic stories and articles about strong thinking ... in comparison: Leonardo Da Vinci with his research on the flight of birds and radically new the idea: “the wing should not flap, but the airplane should fly” - he became more famous and adorned his many conceptual inventions with the mysterious Giaconda.
Subjective provisions of the social world
TRIZ was not built on the foundation of the technical specifications, and its founder Altshuller was not guided by any methods of work. The “masters” of the theory of inventive problem solving and thousands of their students were content with little:
- all artificial systems develop according to certain laws;
- all systems develop, overcoming contradictions;
- for the same contradictions, solutions to problems can vary greatly.
From the point of view of public consciousness, relevance and usefulness, the TRIZ target setting is socially significant and has real practical application.
Automate the process of solving inventive problems by eliminating from it “the elements of chance: sudden and unpredictable insight, blind search and rejection of options, dependence on mood, etc.” (quote from Wikipedia).
TRIZ significantly influenced public consciousness and allowed many thousands of specialists to solve real practical problems. Many laboratories of inventing machines were created and several dozen intelligent systems were designed.
However, the theory of solving inventive problems to this day is no different from the course of secondary or higher school, but it is much weaker organized in terms of methodology. All three basic tenets of the TRIZ concept have absolutely no value. The public consciousness still has no idea of ​​a single “inventing machine”, and the idea of ​​artificial intelligence and the possibility of creating an intellectual system has not been taken seriously for a long time.
To designate does not mean to use: conceptually about the basic TRIZ postulates
Postulate "1": there is no difference between the natural and artificial systems, therefore. both that and another develops not according to definite, but according to objective laws. The fact that a person has not known or does not understand the objectivity of the laws of Nature does not mean anything to these laws.
Postulate "2": all systems are developing, but where is the contradiction. There is a problem, there is a need for its conceptual design, and there is a problem of the education (qualification) of specialists involved in its solution.
Postulate "3": even from scratch, which two qualified specialists found in search of one contradiction, they will formulate two dozen radically different solutions.
So it was, is, and will be, until the level of knowledge and skills is based on subjective opinion, and not on the objective laws of Nature.
Design goals and objectives are always important, but their concept is much more important. In any field of application, a developing natural system or an artificial system created by man is something designated by a goal, and the spectrum of its components is something designated by tasks. There are requirements that are formulated by the consumer (customer), the author of the idea.
Conceptual design (KP) is the dynamics of the development of a goal and its constituent tasks, as a way of moving toward understanding the essence of things, phenomena and processes. A person first understands what needs to be done, then does something and, rethinking what has been created, revises the goal and its constituent tasks.
Design Methods and Tools
An interesting feature of search results on demand: “methods and means of conceptual design”: 97% of the results are related to information systems, programming, databases and other areas in the field of computer science and information technology; the remaining 3% will come from “more practical” areas of social and production needs: aircraft engines, production processes, social or environmental projects, and more.
A strange feature of the human mentality, when he gains knowledge and approaches the understanding of the objective laws of Nature: to put his achievements in the first place, neglect the achievements of other people and consider only his own experience as the defining criterion for knowing the environment and influencing it.
Conceptual design: examples from the field of software development.
1) Currently, it is customary to single out the following software development methodologies:
- A structural approach based on the principle of algorithmic de-composition.
- An object-oriented approach that uses object decomposition.
2) The main stages of the CP are:
- Preliminary design.
- Outline (working or techno-working) design.
- Production, testing and refinement of a prototype system.
3) There are two approaches to KP:
- The first approach involves the formulation, definition and integration of high-level objects used to build the model. The main attention is paid to the integration of concepts (concepts) representing objects.
- The second approach is entity modeling. Modeling and integration of user representations in terms of entity diagrams.
Other definitions of methods, tools, interpretation of goals and objectives in the modern public consciousness are reflected in a similar style.
Objective design approach
It is difficult to agree with the authors of a variety of conceptual theories, techniques, and means of performing conceptual design. First, computer business is not the most important thing in the social and industrial sphere, although it is of great importance. Secondly, the idea of ​​formalization is a guarantee of statics and rigid structures when solving absolutely any problem. Thirdly, with all due and respectful attitude to the knowledge and skills of recognized authorities and specialists, priority is given not to their knowledge and skills, but to the objective laws of nature.
Science and practice owe the theory of solving inventive problems. It was actually a great thing: to systematize physical, chemical, social and other achievements, practical solutions, inventions, technological processes. The task of formulating systems of physical effects or determining objective laws is truly relevant, has always been, and in the modern world its relevance is growing rapidly.
An objective approach to design: nothing hard and formal, all processes and concepts are being developed, continuously reviewed, analyzed and improved. It is impossible to talk about conceptual design in a formal way. To fix the meaning in terms of relational or hierarchical relations between objects or phenomena means to fix the final result.
The point is not what a goal, task, tool or method is. In a conceptual context, meaning is important, not its formal designation.
Man and bee
The mentality of the crown of Nature - man to this day does not allow him to endow other living creatures with intelligence. Man still does not understand that his own opinion absolutely does not mean anything for the objective laws of Nature.
A person may consider that he acts consciously and does not understand that his brain is continuously doing something unconsciously, so that after three years the child after birth begins, for example, to express his needs with words, and by the age of five build pyramids from cubes, and by ten years to dream about flying to the moon or the status of a famous composer.
The bee makes a conceptual design of its behavior on the machine. The result - there is a benefit to the bee family, the environment and humans. Let a person think that a bee does not have intelligence. It absolutely does not mean anything.
The conceptual design of their behavior makes each person better than a bee: he has much more functional and intellectual capabilities. It is not necessary to be a great architect, designer of fifth generation fighters. It is enough to be a simple high school teacher and without knowledge of TRIZ, in one breath to create the concept of preparing children for a complex and interesting life in society. For the benefit of ourselves and people.