Douglas Engelbart: "Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework" (step 2)

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I present to you the collective (habra-) translation of the main document (282,000 characters), the work of the whole life of Douglas Engelbart. (MORE: 50 years later. The Mother of All Demos )


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I think that:

1. Primary sources are extremely important, otherwise “interpreters” appear who interpret for their own benefit (if not stupidity).
2. The project should be done openly, publicly and collectively, and not secretly sawed the product for a couple of years to “conquer the markets”. And all the more so since all the “troubles” of a closed organization are inherited into a product .
3. The project should be free and even more radical - to cause damage to a variety of industry players (goodbye venture investors).
4. The project should be created outside of capitalist logic, copyright, current law and morality.

Word of Douglas Engelbart:

Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework

By Douglas C. Engelbart
October 1962

I. Introduction

Ii. Conceptual framework

A. General Information

The conceptual structure to which we strive should guide us towards the real opportunities and problems associated with the use of modern technologies in order to provide direct assistance to a person in understanding difficult situations, highlighting significant factors and solving problems. To get this orientation, we explore how people reach their current level of effectiveness, and we expect this exam to provide opportunities for improvement.

All human influence on the world is mainly due to the fact that it can transmit to the world through its limited motor channels. This, in turn, is based on information received from the outside world through limited sensory channels; about information, motivations and needs arising in it; and its processing.

The person does not use this information and this processing in order to directly understand the difficult situation in which we are trying to help him. He uses his innate abilities in a more indirect way, because the situation is usually too complicated to obey directly to his motor actions, and always too difficult to gain insight and solutions from direct sensory inspection and the use of basic cognitive abilities. For example, an aborigine who possesses all our basic sensory-motor-motor abilities, but does not possess our knowledge of indirect knowledge and procedures, cannot organize the proper direct actions needed to drive a car in traffic jams, request a book in the library. Call a committee meeting. To discuss a preliminary plan, call someone on the phone or write a letter on a typewriter.

Our culture has evolved, which means for us organizing small things that we can do with our basic abilities so that we can gain insight from truly complex situations, and carry out the processes of developing and implementing solutions to problems. The ways of expanding human abilities are called supplement means here, and we define their four main classes:

1. Artifacts are physical objects designed to provide human comfort, to manipulate things or materials, and to manipulate symbols.
2. Language is the way in which an individual divides the picture of his world into concepts that his mind uses to model this world, and symbols that he attaches to these concepts and uses for consciously manipulating concepts (“thinking”).
3. Methodology - methods, procedures, strategies, etc. With the help of which a person organizes his goal-oriented (goal-centered) / problem-oriented activity.
4. Training is a prerequisite for a person to bring their skills in using the Tools 1, 2, and 3 to the level of effective use.

Thus, the system we want to improve can be visualized as a trained person along with his artifacts, language and methodology. Explicit new system, which we are considering, will include both artifacts computers and computer-controlled devices for storing information, processing information and displaying information. The aspects of the conceptual framework discussed here are primarily related to the ability of a person to substantially use such equipment in an integrated system.

Penetration into all means of magnification is a particular structure or organization. Although an unprepared native cannot drive in traffic because he cannot bridge the gap between his cultural past and the world of cars and traffic, it is possible to move step by step through an organized training program that will allow him to drive efficiently and safely. In other words, the human mind does not learn and does not act great leaps, but in steps, organized or structured so that each depends on the previous steps.

Although the size of the step that a person can make in understanding, innovation, or execution is small compared to the overall size of the step needed to solve a complex problem, people, nevertheless, solve complex problems. It is the means of expansion that serve to solve a big problem in such a way that a person can go through it with his small steps, and it is the structure or organization of these small steps or actions that we are discussing as hierarchies of processes.

Each process of thinking or action consists of subprocesses. Let's look at examples such as drawing with a pencil, writing a letter of the alphabet, or making a plan. Quite a few individual muscle movements are organized into a pencil stroke; similarly, making concrete strokes with a pencil and making a letter plan are complex processes that themselves become subprocesses for writing an alphabetic alphabet.

Although each subprocess is an independent process, since it consists of additional subprocesses, here, it seems, there is no point in looking for the final bottom of the hierarchical structure of the process. There seems to be no way to tell whether there are visible grounds (processes that cannot be further subdivided) in the physical world or in the limitations of human understanding.

In any case, there is no need to start from below when discussing certain hierarchies of processes. No one uses a process that is absolutely unique every time he does something new. Instead, he begins with a group of basic sensory-motor-motor capabilities of the process and adds his artifacts to these specific process capabilities. There are only a finite number of such basic human and
artifact features from which to extract. In addition, even completely different processes of a higher order may have common subprocesses of a relatively higher order. "

When a person writes a prose text (a process of a fairly high order), he uses many processes as subprocesses that are common to other processes of a high order. For example, he uses planning, writing, dictation. The writing process is used as a subprocess in many different processes of even higher order, such as organizing a committee, changing policies, and so on.

Thus, what happens is that each person develops a certain set of capabilities of the processes from which he chooses and adapts those that will constitute the processes that he performs. This repertoire is similar to a set of tools, and just as a mechanic needs to know what his tools are capable of and how to use them, a smart worker should know the capabilities of his tools and have good methods, strategies and practical rules for using them. All the capabilities of the process in an individual's repertoire ultimately rely on the basic abilities within him or his artifacts, and the entire repertoire is an interrelated hierarchical structure (which we often call the repertoire hierarchy).

We find three main categories of process capability in the typical person’s repertoire. There are those that are carried out completely in human cover, which we call the possibilities of the clearly-human process; there are those that possess artifacts to perform processes without human intervention, which we call the capabilities of processes with an explicit artifact; and there is what we call the capabilities of a compound process, which are derived from hierarchies containing both other types.

We assume that our H-LAM / T system (the person using the language, the artifacts, the methodology in which he learns) has the ability and performs the process in any way using this repertoire. Let's look at the process structure for the LAM / T ingredients to get a better feel for our models. Consider the process of writing an important note. A certain concept is connected with this process - placing information in a formal package and distributing it among people for a certain type of consideration, and the type of information package associated with this concept is assigned a special name memorandum. Already the system language shows the influence of this process, that is, the concept and its name.

The process of writing notes can be accomplished using a set of process capabilities (in a mixed or repetitive form), such as the following planning, subject development, writing text, creating a hard copy, and distributing. There is a certain way of organizing these subprocesses, which is part of the system’s methodology. Each of these subprocesses is a functional concept that must be part of the system’s language if it is to be effectively organized into the way a person works, and the symbolic image of each concept must be such that the person can work with it and remember it.

If the memo is simple, a paragraph or so in length, then the first three processes may well be of an explicit human type (i. E. Can be planned, developed) and compiled in the mind), and the last two composite types. If this is a complex note that requires careful planning and development, then all subprocesses may well be of a composite type (for example, at least including the use of pencil and paper artifacts), ”and many different applications of some process capabilities throughout the whole process (for example, , successive projects, revised plans).

The subprocess feature set, discussed so far, if it is invoked in the proper case and sequence, will really allow the writing process of notes to be performed. However, the process of organizing and controlling the use of these features of the subprocess is itself the most important subprocess of the process of writing notes. Consequently, the listed capabilities of the subprocess would be incomplete without the addition of the seventh possibility — what we call the executive capability. It is the ability, stemming from habit, strategy, rules of thumb, prejudice, assimilated method, intuition, unconscious prescriptions, or their combinations, to invoke the corresponding capabilities of a subprocess with a certain sequence and time. The executive process (that is, the use of executive ability) includes subprocesses such as planning, selection and control, and indeed executive processes embody the whole methodology in the H-LAM / T system.

To illustrate the features of the hierarchy of possibilities in our conceptual structure, let's look at the innovation of artifacts that appear directly within the possibility of a relatively low order for composing and modifying written text, and see how this may affect (or, for example, your) hierarchy. opportunities. Suppose you have a new typewriter — imagine that this is a high-speed electric typewriter with some special functions. You can use its keyboard to make it write text just like a regular typewriter. But the printing mechanism is more complicated; In addition to printing a visible character with each stroke, it adds special encoding functions using invisible selective components in the ink and a special form of the character.

As an auxiliary device, there is a gadget that is held like a pencil, and instead of a point, it has a special sensitive mechanism that you can pass through a line of special printing from your typewriter (or someone like it). The signals that this stylus reads through the flexible connecting wire to the writing device are used to determine which characters are perceived, and thus to automatically type a duplicate string of characters. The information storage mechanism in the writing device allows you to move the stylus to read the characters much faster than the writer can type; the writer will catch up with you when you stop thinking about which word or chain of words should be duplicated next, or while you move the linear guide along which you run the stylus.

This typewriter will allow you to use the new text writing process. ( Note: here are the reflections of one of the translators on this topic ) For example, test drafts can be quickly made up of rearranged passages from old sketches along with new words or passages that you stop typing. Your first sketch may be a free outpouring of thoughts in any order, testing the above thought, constantly stimulating new ideas and ideas that need to be introduced. If the confusion of thoughts presented in the project becomes too complicated, you will quickly create a reordered project. It would be wise for you to consider more complexity in the ways of thought that you could build in the search for a way that suits your needs.

You can more easily integrate your new ideas and, thus, use your creative potential more continuously, if you can quickly and flexibly change your working experience. If it is easier for you to update any part of your work record to take into account new changes in thinking or circumstances, it will be easier for you to incorporate more complex procedures into your course of action. This will probably allow you to cope with the additional burden associated, for example, with storing and using special files, the contents of which are flexibly entered and used in any current work, which in turn allows you to develop and use even more complex procedures to it is better to use your talents in your particular work situation.

Here it is important to understand that a direct innovation in one particular opportunity can have far-reaching consequences in the rest of your hierarchy of possibilities. The change may spread up the hierarchy of possibilities; Higher-order features that can take advantage of the initially changed capability can now be reorganized to take advantage of the special benefits of this change and intermediate changes with higher capabilities. The change can spread down the hierarchy as a result of the emergence of new features at a high level and the possibilities of modification hidden at lower levels. These hidden features might previously have been unsuitable in the hierarchy and become usable due to a new feature at a higher level.

The writing machine and its flexible copying capabilities would take you a long time if you tried to exhaust the reverberating chain of related opportunities to bring useful innovations to your hierarchy of possibilities. This one innovation can cause a rather extensive redesign of this hierarchy; Your way of doing many of your tasks will change significantly. In fact, this process characterizes the evolution that our means of increasing intelligence has undergone since the appearance of the first human brain.

For our goal of developing an orientation towards the possibilities for actively achieving the enhancement of a person’s intellectual efficiency, it is important to understand that we must be prepared to follow such chains of new opportunities across the entire hierarchy of possibilities (requiring a systematic approach). It is also important to understand that we must focus on the synthesis of new opportunities by reorganizing other opportunities, both old and new, that exist in the entire hierarchy (demanding a “system engineering” approach).

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I invite all like-minded people to help translate the next section .

Translators: Jeditobe , Danila Medvedev, Yuri Sverdlov, Vladimir Frolov, Andrei Dunaev, Christina Roppelt, Artyom Larin, Yevgeny Sychev, Jean Kolesnikov.

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