¶ Design (1)
Index Entry
To me the word design can mean either a weightless metaphysical conception or a physical pattern. I tend to differentiate between design as a subjective experience, i.e., designs which affect me and produce involuntary and often subconscious reactions, in contradistinction to the designs which I undertake objectively in response to stimuli. What I elect to do consciously is objective design. When we say there is a design, it indicates that an intellect has organized events into discrete and conceptual interpatternings. Snowflakes are design; crystals are design; music is design; and the electromagnetic spectrum of which the rainbow colors are but one-millionth of its range, is design; planets, stars, galaxies, and their contained behaviors, such as the periodic regularities of the chemical elements are all design-accomplishments. If a DNA-RNA genetic code programs the design of roses, elephants and bees, we will have to ask what intellect designed the DNA-RNA code, as well as the atoms and molecules which implement the coded programs.
The opposite of design is chaos. Design is intelligent or intelligible. Most of the design subjectively experienced
