Emptiness of Form

[Andreas Söderlund]

The book "The New Heart of Wisdom" (http://www.tharpa.com/us/the-new-heart-of-wisdom.html) is reiterating some old concepts that I think coincides with DCI. Here's an excerpt from a discussion about "Emptiness of Form":

To illustrate how our body is a mere appearance, we can consider the analogy of a rainbow. In certain conditions a rainbow appears in the sky. To the observer it appears that the rainbow has a certain size, shape and location in space. It seems to have its own existence, perhaps three or four miles away. However, we know that if we travel to the apparent location of the rainbow there will be no trace of a rainbow there. We can say therefore that the rainbow is a mere appearance and cannot be found upon investigation. Although other objects, such as our body, seem to have a more concrete existence, if we investigate carefully we will discover that they too are a mere appearance.

Through our experience, we know that the appearance of a rainbow is deceptive. It appears to have its own independent existence but we know that its existence depends on the sun, the rain and the position of the observer. If the observer moves, the rainbow moves; if the sun goes behind a cloud, the rainbow fades or disappears. Provided we accept that the rainbow is only an appearance that arises in dependence upon certain causes and conditions, we can accept its existence and behave appropriately. However, if we cling to the idea that the rainbow exists independently of us and is fixed in space in the way that it appears, we may travel in search of the ‘end of the rainbow’ and experience only frustration.

Isn't this very similar to for example the Bank Account Context? When you look inside there are only interacting Roles, the Account doesn't really exist by itself.

One can perhaps ask the question "what is a system but merely a number of mental constructs?" In the end, it's all in the mind... Any thoughts about this? Cope, is Form empty? :)

/Andreas

[James O Coplien]

On 02 Jan 2015, at 09:08, Andreas Söderlund <gaz...@gmail.com> wrote:

Cope, is Form empty?

Mu.

According to most architectural critics and theorists, the purpose of architecture isn’t to create structure, but to create space. In its extreme Alexander calls it “the Void.” If you look at his 15 structural transformations / properties, one of them is called Positive Space.

Form is an intellectual concept. It is an abstraction of structure. The concept is fundamental to architecture. Form itself has no corporeal existence but manifests itself in structure.

The purpose of great software development is not to model any objective reality. It is to create a new reality. See: Floyd and Züllighoven, “Software Development and Reality Construction,” 1992 (re-issued, 2011).

[Raoul Duke]

> The purpose of great software development is not to model any objective
> reality. It is to create a new reality.

hear hear. which I guess is one of the reasons bog-standard OOD can
lead to painful software bases.