Physical Creatures in a Digital World

Alan Dix^1,2

¹ Talis, Birmingham, UK

² InfoLab21, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK

Abstract

We are creatures of flesh and blood, our whole cognitive nature well fitted to a physical world of solid things, and yet, within our lifetimes, learning to deal with digital devices our flint-knapping forbearers could never envisage.  This paper explores some aspects of this.  Inter alia, we see how Fitts' law is really a law of cybernetic extension and how this extension has been part of our being since the earliest humans and we discus the way imagination and externalisation, two complimentary aspects of our cognitive being, fit us for physical life and yet are also essential as digital denizen.

Keywords: embodiment, external representation, Fitts' law, imagination

Extended Abstract

We are creatures of flesh and blood, born into a physical world of solid things; our whole cognitive nature has evolved over the aeons to be well fitted to this world, and yet within our lifetimes we must learn to deal with complex digital devices that our flint-knapping forbearers could never envisage. For many years I have been driven to understand our physical nature.  This is partly to inform the design of the many devices that surround us, phones, washing machines, automatic doors, which have both physical form and digital behaviour.  It is also partly to understand the design of purely virtual spaces; and at present especially the web as I work part of my time for Talis a semantic web company.  In the digital world of web, desktop, VR and visualisation, some, but not all the rules of the physical world are relaxed, but which are the ones that really matter?

Keeping an eye on both these worlds gives many insights.  Optimality is one example Simon's bounded rationality vs Anderson's rational analysis is partly about taking into account the limited physical resources available, and Turing also considered the physicality of computation.  The action perspective arising in the philosophy of embodiment and in ecological psychology is a legacy of our physical origins and yet also critical in our digital interactions as information foraging theory seeks to understand.  And even Fitts' Law is not, as is normally considered, about our 'normal' human limits, but is really about our cybernetic nature, as we have been technologically and informationally augmented ever since we were recognisably human.

Within this space we have two complimentary aspects of our cognitive being which both fit us for physical life and yet are also essential as digital denizens.  Imagination allows us to take the physical world outside and bring it inside, to be considered, planned, and perhaps act as the crucial link between disparate cognitive systems.  I have been particularly fascinated by the nature (and computational modelling) of regret and how it brings together imagination, rationality, emotion and primitive response, and also the way the orderliness of dreams gives insight into the of waking life.  The counter to this is externalisation, the way in which we represent our internal concepts and thoughts in the world outside – both digital and physical: from cave art to mathematics, from maps to design sketches. There is a peculiar power when we make both explicit and observable what was tacit and hidden exposing the 'unknown knowns', and also allowing higher levels of cognition as we can talk about out very concepts and thoughts.  It is when we make thought most concrete and lowly that it can become most abstract and rich.

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http://www.hcibook.com/alan/papers/ecce2011-keynote/

Alan Dix 4/7/2011