Assignment 1 – Mohit

I found certain similarities between the Kamvar’s and Engelbart’s pieces. Both alluded to the emergent properties of a system which are different in character from the combined properties of its sub-pieces. Kamvar attempted to co-relate natural processes to the constructed world of humans. Though I have a slightly different opinion on his definition of self-limiting tools. He contends that search engine is an example of self-limiting tools while television and video games are not. I would argue that  even search engines are not self-limiting. The method of perpetuating the usage of tool is of different kind in the case of search engines. The more accurate the search result, the more likely the user is going to return. It is not continuous self-reinforcement like video games and TVs but a discrete and disjointed form of it, but self-reinforcement nonetheless.

I was a bit surprised by Kamvar’s contention that companies which provide free services supported by ads are somehow benevolent. This reminds what Brain Acton and Jan Koum (of Whatsapp) said,” Remember, when advertising is involved you the user are the product.” I remember reading Pierre Bourdieu’s ‘Sur La Television’ where he said that if you think television channels sell ads to support the programming they make for you, you’ve got it the other way around!

Engelbart says that, “The entire effect of an individual on the world stems essentially from what he can transmit to the world through his limited motor channels. This in turn is based on information received from the outside world through limited sensory channels; on information, drives, and needs generated within him; and on his processing of that information.”  I think there is more to what a human can do in the world which goes beyond his/her sensory capacities as an individual. In real life situations, to compensate for the limitations of attention and working memory, individuals offload certain cognitive tasks on to the environment to increase efficiency and epistemic reach. This offloading does not necessitate advanced/electronic tools but can occur even in the presence of natural artifacts and environment.

While designing tools for augmentation, it is particularly important to keep the “embedding” nature of of cognitive constructs in mind, so that the activities and scenarios can be structured in a way that encourages effective offloading strategies while retaining the most essential cognitive processes.