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WILD_COG

                                             November 15, 2013

One for the reading list:

  "It was only after I completed my first
  study period at sea that I realized the
  importance of the fact that cognition was
  socially distributed."

     Edwin Hutchins,                                   I look forward to
     "Cognition in the Wild" (1995), MIT Press         much productive
                                                       puning and forced
     From the introduction, quoted by Cosma Shalizi    cross-comparison
     (noted via a recent Delong link):                 with Gary Synder,
                                                       all due to the fact
         http://hci.ucsd.edu/hutchins/citw.html        that they both use
                                                       the word "Wild".

  Just from the introduction, I get the sense that
  this is one of those Great Discoveries to people
  inside a discipline, but less remarkable to people
  in others-- in particular, the author suggests the
  need to use the in situ observation techniques
  rather than just doing lab experiments,
  recommending an approach much like Anthropologists
  have been doing all along.

  His focus is on fairly tight groups, compared
  to my interests-- I begin by thinking about      His insights about
  the wide understanding a democratic nation       groups of navigators
  needs, his starting point is the navigators      might apply to one of
  on the bridge of naval ships.                    my interests though:
                                                   the organization of
  But then problems with things such as            code development.
  "group think" certainly have much to
  do with the problem of governance.

      If you conclude we need to trust teams
      of experts for some things, than the
      reliability of those expert groups
      becomes very important.


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