Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
This is a view that is very compatible with another trend that has arisen
in the analysis of human intelligence and of “reality construction.” It is not a
new view, but it has taken new life in a new guise. Originally introduced by Vy-
gotsky, and championed by his widening circle of admirers, the new position
is that cultural products, like language and other symbolic systems, mediate
thought and place their stamp on our representations of reality (Shore 1996;
Vygotsky 1978; Vygotsky 1962; Stigler et al. 1990). In its latest version, it takes
the name, after Seeley-Brown and Collins, of
distributed intelligence
(Brown
et al. 1988). An individual's working intelligence is never “solo.” It cannot
be understood without taking into account his or her reference topics, notes,
computer programs and data bases, or most important of all, the network of
friends, colleagues, or mentors on whom one leans for help and advice. Your
chance of winning a Nobel Prize increases immeasurably if you have worked in
the laboratory of somebody who has already won one, not because of pull but
because of access to the ideas and criticisms of those who know better.
1
2.
Once one takes such views as seriously as they deserve, there are some in-
teresting and non-obvious consequences. The first is that there are probably a
fair number of important domains supported by cultural toolkits and distri-
butional networks. A second is that the domains are probably differentially in-
tegrated in different cultures, as anthropologists have been insisting for some
years now (Gladwin 1979; Rosaldo 1989; Geertz 1983; Bruner 1990). And a
third is that many domains are not organized by logical principles or associa-
tive connections, particularly those that have to do with man's knowledge of
himself, his social world, his culture. Indeed, most of our knowledge about
human knowledge-getting and reality-constructing is drawn from studies of
how people come to know the natural or physical world rather than the hu-
man or symbolic world. For many historical reasons, including the practical
power inherent in the use of logic, mathematics, and empirical science, we
have concentrated upon the child's growth as “little scientist,” “little logician,”
“little mathematician.” These are typically Enlightenment-inspired studies. It
is curious how little effort has gone into discovering how man comes to con-
struct the social world and the things that transpire therein. Surely, such chal-
lenging fine works as E. E. Jones's magisterial
Interpersonal Perception
make
it clear that we do not achieve our mastery of social reality by growing up as
“little scientists,” “little logicians,” or “little mathematicians” (Jones 1990). So
while we have learned a very great deal indeed about how we come eventu-
ally to construct and “explain” a world of nature in terms of causes, probabil-
ities, space-time manifolds, etc., we know altogether too little about how we
