148 Environments of intelligence
Although I admit to the point that much of what I described here has a long
historical pedigree, the difference of degree that I see lies in the profoundness and
systematicity of the modifications of informational relations to our environments
that the digital computer, in its generality of purpose and in its many incarnations,
has brought about. To the extent that digital computers are cognitive artefacts in
the meaning discussed here – they might also serve other, non-cognitive functions
after all – they appear to be the most potent cognitive artefacts to date. Once these
cognitive-computational artefacts became directly concerned with, and directly
involved in, human interactions with human environments, the question had to
arise of what they effect with respect to these relations.
Moreover, a difference in kind to the technologies of old can be identified, first,
for those artefacts which are capable of partly interpreting and adaptively behaving towards the actions of their human counterparts. A second difference in kind
can be claimed for technologies that create simulated environments and artefacts
that blend natural and simulated elements in real environments, where the convergence/isomorphism distinction introduced earlier might turn into a rather complex
affair, particularly in the light of the reality/virtuality distinction.
If these technologies succeed in either of these ways, their users’ informational environments will have been modified in a significant respect: if cognition
is an embodied activity that is coupled with a perceivable environment, and if
that environment is enriched with embedded artefacts that adaptively and partly
autonomously provide information for human activities, such an environment
will supposedly become informationally more transparent and interactively more
tractable. Whereas, under natural conditions, an environment cannot per se considered friendly, an intelligent environment of the said kind will present itself as a
seamless, smooth and cooperative surface for its users’ activities. It will affect the
choice and pursuit of those activities without necessarily being perceived as having been modified in a certain way. The nature of such an environment may come
to be perceived as a matter of course. However, the discussion of more detailed
examples in the next chapter will suggest that this is a limiting case, and that coming to be perceived as a matter of course, if accomplished at all, is a complex and
two-way affair.
Notes
1 Among Peirce’s scattered and complex references to these semiotic concepts, the loci
classici are Peirce (1868) and Peirce (1998).
2 I seem to remember that these two instructive examples were brought up by Martin Hitz
in a discussion several years ago. Even if my memory should fail me at this point, my
acknowledgement to him will not be misplaced.
Although I admit to the point that much of what I described here has a long
historical pedigree, the difference of degree that I see lies in the profoundness and
systematicity of the modifications of informational relations to our environments
that the digital computer, in its generality of purpose and in its many incarnations,
has brought about. To the extent that digital computers are cognitive artefacts in
the meaning discussed here – they might also serve other, non-cognitive functions
after all – they appear to be the most potent cognitive artefacts to date. Once these
cognitive-computational artefacts became directly concerned with, and directly
involved in, human interactions with human environments, the question had to
arise of what they effect with respect to these relations.
Moreover, a difference in kind to the technologies of old can be identified, first,
for those artefacts which are capable of partly interpreting and adaptively behaving towards the actions of their human counterparts. A second difference in kind
can be claimed for technologies that create simulated environments and artefacts
that blend natural and simulated elements in real environments, where the convergence/isomorphism distinction introduced earlier might turn into a rather complex
affair, particularly in the light of the reality/virtuality distinction.
If these technologies succeed in either of these ways, their users’ informational environments will have been modified in a significant respect: if cognition
is an embodied activity that is coupled with a perceivable environment, and if
that environment is enriched with embedded artefacts that adaptively and partly
autonomously provide information for human activities, such an environment
will supposedly become informationally more transparent and interactively more
tractable. Whereas, under natural conditions, an environment cannot per se considered friendly, an intelligent environment of the said kind will present itself as a
seamless, smooth and cooperative surface for its users’ activities. It will affect the
choice and pursuit of those activities without necessarily being perceived as having been modified in a certain way. The nature of such an environment may come
to be perceived as a matter of course. However, the discussion of more detailed
examples in the next chapter will suggest that this is a limiting case, and that coming to be perceived as a matter of course, if accomplished at all, is a complex and
two-way affair.
Notes
1 Among Peirce’s scattered and complex references to these semiotic concepts, the loci
classici are Peirce (1868) and Peirce (1998).
2 I seem to remember that these two instructive examples were brought up by Martin Hitz
in a discussion several years ago. Even if my memory should fail me at this point, my
acknowledgement to him will not be misplaced.