Plans and situated actions: the problem of human-machine communication
Plans and situated actions: the problem of human-machine communication
The sciences of the artificial (3rd ed.)
The sciences of the artificial (3rd ed.)
The invisible computer
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Traditional dualist assumptions about how humans acquire and represent knowledge of the world support theories that deal in second- or third-order representations of their subject matter, such as images, diagrams, equations and theories. These accounts ignore the processes whereby such representations are achieved. I provide examples from the work of Michael Faraday which show that abstraction, or discerning patterns and structure in phenomenological chaos depends on the development observational techniques, which I characterize as cognitive technologies. The examples also illustrate the importance of human agency to the process of making representations of the world which enable scientists to understand and think about it.