Posted by dorayme on 10/28/94 12:01

In article <slrnfppuo1.jto.spamspam@bowser.marioworld>,
Ben C <spamspam@spam.eggs> wrote:

> On 2008-01-27, dorayme <doraymeRidThis@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
> > In article <Xns9A31D3D4F61C5nanopandaneredbojias@85.214.90.236>,
> > Neredbojias <monstersquasher@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >> > IS THE BOTTOM AN ENGINEERING OR DESIGN DECISION?
> >>
> >> It's not any kind of "decision"! It's an integral part of a cup.
> >
> > Let us take these two answers of yours in turn:
> >
> > One, a decision to include or not include a feature is not
> > necessarily a conscious one, not necessarily one that is
> > reflected upon. But if it is a feature that could be left out,
> > but is not left out, then a decision to include it has been made.
> > If you don't like the word "decision" here, you can substitute
> > another one (you like making up words, you will enjoy it)
>
> I'm not sure you can really have such a thing as an unconscious
> decision, any more than you can have an unconscious thought, a circle
> that isn't round, or a God that doesn't exist.

I was not meaning to get into the status of kinds of decisions
too heavily. My point was simple, that when we make things we
make decisions and some of these decisions are quite deliberate
and some are made automatically without any identifiable process
of thinking. And I was trying to press the distinction between
something people are calling engineering and something they are
calling design.

(But, btw anyway, <g> surely your list has an odd man out! The
last two are logical impossibilities (depending on what you quite
mean by the last), whereas a thought below the conscious is quite
well known and is indeed the contrast needed for the very notion
of some being conscious)

> Some decisions can be made very quickly, like which way to hit the ball
> in a game of tennis, but perhaps those are better called subconscious
> rather than unconscious.
>

Very well then. Let us agree that there are conscious deliberate
decisions and others below consciousness or at least not
deliberate.

I will attend to the more important issue you go on to raise in a
separate post.

--
dorayme

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