Contact:cdent@burningchrome.com
Winograd, T. & Flores, F. (1986). Chapter 6: Towards a new orientation
(p. 70-79). Chapter 7: Computers and representation (p. 83-92).
Chapter 8: Computation and intelligence (p. 93-106). Chapter 9:
Understanding language (p. 107-124). In _Understanding computers
and cognition_. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing.
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(This one gets a little slippy, but seemed worth writing down.)
The question we now have to deal with is how to design computers on
the basis of the new discourse about language and thought that we
have been elaborating. Computers are not only designed in language
but are themseleves equipment for language. They will not just
reflect our understanding of language, but will at the same time
create new possibilities for the speaking and listening that we
do--for creating ourselves in language.
My return to academics was motivated by a desire to find terms in
shared language that I could use to describe ideas that I had been
chewing on, without labels, for many years. Winograd & Flores are
helping that process a great deal by providing a philosophical and
cognitive context that informs and shapes the ideas.
Knowledge acquisition is a process of information transmittal and
evaluation (see:
http://www.burningchrome.com/~cdent/sliswarp/biblio/index.cgi?word=21)
where the evaluation itself is also a form of transmittal. The
transmittal occurs in the medium of language. Not simply spoken words
(such as the English language) but also images, gestures, all the
things which are available in the context of the knowledge acquisition
process.
In traditional settings knowledge is shared between people who are
communicating. The computer becomes a special tool because of its
ability, born of its nature as a tool for manipulating
respresentations, to augment communication; with oneself, with ideas
and with others.
If new knowledge is created by comparing, contrasting and linking
between existing representations the computer is helpful in the way in
which its generation of alternate representations is somewhat
arbitrary: it can be, if desired more or less constrained than the
somewhat socially and psychologically contrained representation
generation and management that humans do.
This is not to say, by any stretch, that the computer is intelligent.
The computer can't do much with these representations it is
generating, other than showing them to the user. But that is the key:
the user can evaluate the representations that have been transmitted
to it, by language, and discover or create new knowledge.
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