Discussion on Architecture (II.): Understanding concept is the basis of understanding architecture

In the previous article, we discussed what a schema is. In fact, these basic concepts are very important for architecture, and most people think they are aware of the concepts they are accustomed to every day, but in fact they are subconscious and not active. For example, "What is a table?" "When I do training, I often take this example to ask you, answer all sorts of strange things." This actually led to the structure of the time, the different roles of communication will be a lot of problems, then the results can be imagined.

As mentioned in the previous article, the architecture actually solves the human problem , and the concept is the foundation of the human understanding of the world, and the understanding of the natural concept is very important. This article tries to discuss how to get to know the concept. Of course this is not a linguistic article, and what I am discussing here may not be the same as linguistics, and if you are interested in linguistics, you can refer to it.

First of all, I want to first declare that this series of articles are based on people's understanding as the main body to discuss, the solution is the human problem, any no specific statement of the part, all implied this background, so as to avoid misunderstanding.

The concept also belongs to the human understanding of the world and used to communicate the means, including the concept of "concept" is the same. In ancient times, not called "concept", called "the name of the phase."

　　What is a phase?

Generally we think: see a thing, for example, a cup, "Cup" is a name, refers to the things that see is phase, is the phase of things. As soon as we hear the word "cup", the image of a cup emerges in our mind. And the word "cup" is used to refer to this phase, called the name. Together it is called "the name of the phase."

But when we break the glass, will we call this broken thing a cup? Certainly not, usually called "broken tiles", if we have crushed the broken tiles, the name changed again, called "sand." This is strange, the same thing, how can make so many names come out?

　　What exactly is the phase?

In fact, the "phase" is not a specific thing, as mentioned above a porcelain cup, not refers to this porcelain, but this porcelain play a role: hand grip, open (usually not more than the size of the bottom, too big mouth is called bowl), and there is a space in the interior of something such a role. Does not mean the porcelain itself. That's why we saw a man take a cup on TV and we knew it was a cup. But what we actually see is light and shadow. So the fact that it represents this function is not something specific, but the name is used to identify the role that is used to communicate.

　　Why is this role needed?

This role is actually to solve the problem that "people need a single hand grip, but want to avoid direct contact with the object".

So, what each concept actually solves, or a particular problem that a person encounters, we put a solution to the problem, given a name, which is the corresponding particular concept. For the concept of the word itself, in order to collectively refer to these names, we call this kind of role name "concept". The "architecture" we discussed last time is also the same specific concept, which is no longer detailed here. Similarly, what is "architecture"? "Architecture" actually solves the problem that "people need exclusive space and can communicate with the outside world more smoothly".

Take the front "table" for example, what is "table"? Many people answer, four legs, or have legs, there is a plane, and so on, the cabinet is not the same? Why do we not think of the table when we see the cupboard? Even if we put on the cupboard to eat, we see still ask, why eat in the cupboard? Don't call the table. If you understand the above, it is very simple, the table is actually to solve the person sitting in a chair, the hand can also support in a plane to continue to carry out the activities of the problem, usually paired with the chair to appear. Sitting in a chair working, there is a very serious problem with the cupboard--I don't know if we've tried it--it's the problem that the leg can't unfold. It's hard to know what it's like to sit here for more than half an hour. So there must be enough space underneath the table to accommodate the knees and calves to solve the problem. A device that solves these problems can be called a table.

Similarly can be defined out of the chair, this shows that the height of the table and Chair is also limited, are to solve human problems, to meet the human height: the height and depth of the chair, must meet the length of the calf and thigh, the height of the chair back to match the height of the spine, the height of the table to match the height of the leg The nature of adults and children will be different. It becomes physiology, in fact, to make tables and chairs, it is necessary to understand the human physiological structure, in order to correctly understand the concept of tables and chairs.

Similarly, why we can translate between different languages, because although the language is different, but the human face of the problem is the same, the use of different names. The same is true for translations between different animals.

　　About abstract

In the process of discussing the concept of table, many people will propose the concept of abstraction, that defining a table is actually a process of abstraction. Here, I think it is necessary to clarify the concept of abstraction, I think there is a misunderstanding. I have noticed that in the community of architects, not talking about abstraction seems to be not a qualified architect.

The meaning of the word abstract is actually the merging of similar parts of different concepts to form a new concept. There are a lot of problems in this: first, "similar parts" are not necessarily so similar to different people, and secondly, after abstraction is a new concept, which is not the same as the original concept, and the problem solved is not the same. So we cannot use abstraction to define a thing, abstract is actually a process of classification, it is completely another matter. Another example, a cup and a container, many people think that the container is the abstract of the cup, but in fact the cup is a cup, the container is a container, they solve the problem is not the same. When we need to solve the problem of loading things, we will say the container; When we need to solve a single hand grip to install things, we will say that a cup.

In retrospect, according to the definition of architecture, the ability to do a good job in architecture is to be able to understand the concept correctly, to discover the problem that is represented by the concept, and then to understand the problem that needs to be solved in the target domain, so as to be able to lay the groundwork for a good architecture. In fact, this ability is applicable in any field, such as if we want to learn a new technology, such as Hibernate, Spring, PhotoShop, WWW, Internet, etc., if you know the problem that these concepts need to solve, Learning these new technologies or concepts will be powerful and fast, and learning a new field can be very quick and effective, using these concepts to explain problems, and even inventing new concepts is easy. Why stress this, because when it comes to architecture, there are times when problems are solved in a new area, and you have to quickly enter and master the field before you can solve the problem correctly.

The above through a few examples, discussed the misunderstanding of the concept of understanding, how to effectively understand the concept, understanding the meaning behind the concept, and how to use the concept of understanding, rapid learning. Mastering these principles will help us to quickly identify and locate problems in the architecture phase.

Discussion on Architecture (II.): Understanding concept is the basis of understanding architecture