The nature of cognitive artefacts 147
An item produced by a cognitive artefact, to the extent is informational in character,
would then either be convergent with or isomorphic to natural information.
However, as I will try to demonstrate in the following chapter, there are artefacts and situations in which these relations overlap, which has to do with both
the information and the environments involved. Moreover, given the examples
discussed so far, one might believe that the conceptual distinction I introduced
is coextensive with that between “reality” and “virtuality” in human-computer
interaction studies, where it is used to describe the properties of artefacts that
(partly) simulate properties of an environment. However, additional examples
will help to demonstrate that the convergence/isomorphism distinction cuts
across the reality/virtuality distinction in some important cases, and in some
important respects.
My discussion of cognitive artefacts, in view of their capacity of changing
informational environments, might be met with a fairly straightforward sceptical
observation: I have been selecting examples of rather novel, mostly computerbased technologies, apparently implicating that these examples are paradigmatic
of what technologies of this sort accomplish – and perhaps only technologies of
this sort can accomplish. However, first, cognitive artefacts need not be computational in nature, given the definition that opened this chapter. Second, there
may be much older, pre-computational, possibly even non-cognitive and, from
the contemporary point of view, rather mundane technologies that have the same
kinds of effects: they add new mechanisms to the pursuit of our goals (which
is what technologies do by definition); they expand the scope of human agency
(which is one desired effect of technologies); and they may have the effect of
altering our perception of, and activities towards, the environment to the point of
altering our informational environments altogether (which is what some technologies, cognitive or other, turn out to do).
Examples to support this sceptical point would be, among others, electric light
and the mechanical clock.
2
Electric light had the effect of shifting human activity patterns into the nights, not only allowing for longer working hours but also
permanently modifying our perception of what the night is. It is hence no less
than constitutive W to these activities. The mechanical clock was the first device
to portion perceived time into measurable sequences, thus working to structure
and discipline human activities in a way that enabled notions of punctuality and
time efficiency that were unattainable before but now became a key ingredient
of the industrial revolution. Again, the technology is at least constitutive W to the
activities in question (for a classic account of this role of the mechanical clock,
see Mumford 1934, 13f ). In a non-trivial sense, the mechanical clock was an information technology or cognitive artefact just as digital computers are. It may well
count as an extension of the mind that has altered our GS-constitutive relations
to our environments. Electric light, in turn, is a technology that enabled activities that were hitherto practically impossible between dusk and dawn, and that in
some respects modified conditions for information uptake, while neither being an
information technology nor being entitled to the status of an extension of the mind
in any serious way.
An item produced by a cognitive artefact, to the extent is informational in character,
would then either be convergent with or isomorphic to natural information.
However, as I will try to demonstrate in the following chapter, there are artefacts and situations in which these relations overlap, which has to do with both
the information and the environments involved. Moreover, given the examples
discussed so far, one might believe that the conceptual distinction I introduced
is coextensive with that between “reality” and “virtuality” in human-computer
interaction studies, where it is used to describe the properties of artefacts that
(partly) simulate properties of an environment. However, additional examples
will help to demonstrate that the convergence/isomorphism distinction cuts
across the reality/virtuality distinction in some important cases, and in some
important respects.
My discussion of cognitive artefacts, in view of their capacity of changing
informational environments, might be met with a fairly straightforward sceptical
observation: I have been selecting examples of rather novel, mostly computerbased technologies, apparently implicating that these examples are paradigmatic
of what technologies of this sort accomplish – and perhaps only technologies of
this sort can accomplish. However, first, cognitive artefacts need not be computational in nature, given the definition that opened this chapter. Second, there
may be much older, pre-computational, possibly even non-cognitive and, from
the contemporary point of view, rather mundane technologies that have the same
kinds of effects: they add new mechanisms to the pursuit of our goals (which
is what technologies do by definition); they expand the scope of human agency
(which is one desired effect of technologies); and they may have the effect of
altering our perception of, and activities towards, the environment to the point of
altering our informational environments altogether (which is what some technologies, cognitive or other, turn out to do).
Examples to support this sceptical point would be, among others, electric light
and the mechanical clock.
2
Electric light had the effect of shifting human activity patterns into the nights, not only allowing for longer working hours but also
permanently modifying our perception of what the night is. It is hence no less
than constitutive W to these activities. The mechanical clock was the first device
to portion perceived time into measurable sequences, thus working to structure
and discipline human activities in a way that enabled notions of punctuality and
time efficiency that were unattainable before but now became a key ingredient
of the industrial revolution. Again, the technology is at least constitutive W to the
activities in question (for a classic account of this role of the mechanical clock,
see Mumford 1934, 13f ). In a non-trivial sense, the mechanical clock was an information technology or cognitive artefact just as digital computers are. It may well
count as an extension of the mind that has altered our GS-constitutive relations
to our environments. Electric light, in turn, is a technology that enabled activities that were hitherto practically impossible between dusk and dawn, and that in
some respects modified conditions for information uptake, while neither being an
information technology nor being entitled to the status of an extension of the mind
in any serious way.