10 Preliminaries
modified, the information involved shall remain being conceived of as natural
information.
Changes in the informational environment, I will continue to argue, prompt acts
of accommodating or “naturalising” them. These effects of cognitive artefacts
also work to question the boundary between what is commonly considered the
inner workings of the mind and the role of the outer environment in cognitive processes. The technologies in question do not even have to be extremely sophisticated or, in the conventional sense, intelligent, to achieve these effects. The way in
which they make available, possibly modify and present the information on which
human action depends will make the difference. The incorporation of simulated
or virtual elements in human environments will be the paradigm of the changes
I have in mind but not their only manifestation. Typically, the purpose of such
elements of “smart environments” is to enable quasi-natural interactions between
human being and machine in a given context. Under some circumstances, the
machine need not even be a – machine- or human-like – counterpart that could
be easily identified or individuated as such by its human partner. Although not
literally, a thus-designed artefact might cease to be a machine in a relevant sense.
In order to develop this argument, I will use Part I of this book to present
an account of natural information, as encountered in our environments, and its
contribution to “the apparent complexity” of our behaviours as referred to by
Simon – which is not merely a seeming complexity, but that complexity which
we can observe in and of ourselves. After all, what Weizenbaum still held to be
an “impoverished” conception of man might ultimately be the richer one. I argue
that information and environments are generally objective affairs but that organisms (human and other) live in informational environments that are, in a qualified
sense, particular to them and that are constituted by the specifically relevant variables that they have to keep track of in order to get by. I will use Chapter 2 to spell
out the notions of natural information and its role in perception and behaviour on a
general level, with focus on the Dretskean view. In Chapter 3, I will discuss three
theories of visual perception that give markedly variant importance to the role
of information and of the environment of perception and action: David Marr’s
computational theory of vision, James Jerome Gibson’s ecological psychology
and Dale Purves’s Empirical Strategy of vision. This discussion, and in particular a comparison between Gibson’s and Dretske’s concepts of information, will
help me to carve out a notion of natural information in more detail in Chapter 4,
and it will prepare the ground for a hypothesis on informational environments in
Chapter 6.
In Part II, I will match my account of informational environments against what
may seem its closest relatives in contemporary debates, namely the 4E family of
theories, so as to sort out relevant commonalities and differences and prepare the
ground for an account of cognitive artefacts (Chapter 7). I will then develop that
account of cognitive artefacts in more detail (Chapter 8). In order to ground that
still fairly theoretical discussion, I will proceed with brief inquiries into some
technological attempts at taking the role of the environment in cognition seriously (Chapter 9). None of these technologies aim at modelling, simulating or
modified, the information involved shall remain being conceived of as natural
information.
Changes in the informational environment, I will continue to argue, prompt acts
of accommodating or “naturalising” them. These effects of cognitive artefacts
also work to question the boundary between what is commonly considered the
inner workings of the mind and the role of the outer environment in cognitive processes. The technologies in question do not even have to be extremely sophisticated or, in the conventional sense, intelligent, to achieve these effects. The way in
which they make available, possibly modify and present the information on which
human action depends will make the difference. The incorporation of simulated
or virtual elements in human environments will be the paradigm of the changes
I have in mind but not their only manifestation. Typically, the purpose of such
elements of “smart environments” is to enable quasi-natural interactions between
human being and machine in a given context. Under some circumstances, the
machine need not even be a – machine- or human-like – counterpart that could
be easily identified or individuated as such by its human partner. Although not
literally, a thus-designed artefact might cease to be a machine in a relevant sense.
In order to develop this argument, I will use Part I of this book to present
an account of natural information, as encountered in our environments, and its
contribution to “the apparent complexity” of our behaviours as referred to by
Simon – which is not merely a seeming complexity, but that complexity which
we can observe in and of ourselves. After all, what Weizenbaum still held to be
an “impoverished” conception of man might ultimately be the richer one. I argue
that information and environments are generally objective affairs but that organisms (human and other) live in informational environments that are, in a qualified
sense, particular to them and that are constituted by the specifically relevant variables that they have to keep track of in order to get by. I will use Chapter 2 to spell
out the notions of natural information and its role in perception and behaviour on a
general level, with focus on the Dretskean view. In Chapter 3, I will discuss three
theories of visual perception that give markedly variant importance to the role
of information and of the environment of perception and action: David Marr’s
computational theory of vision, James Jerome Gibson’s ecological psychology
and Dale Purves’s Empirical Strategy of vision. This discussion, and in particular a comparison between Gibson’s and Dretske’s concepts of information, will
help me to carve out a notion of natural information in more detail in Chapter 4,
and it will prepare the ground for a hypothesis on informational environments in
Chapter 6.
In Part II, I will match my account of informational environments against what
may seem its closest relatives in contemporary debates, namely the 4E family of
theories, so as to sort out relevant commonalities and differences and prepare the
ground for an account of cognitive artefacts (Chapter 7). I will then develop that
account of cognitive artefacts in more detail (Chapter 8). In order to ground that
still fairly theoretical discussion, I will proceed with brief inquiries into some
technological attempts at taking the role of the environment in cognition seriously (Chapter 9). None of these technologies aim at modelling, simulating or