The Shape of Actions: What Humans and Machines Can Do

Harry Collins & Martin Kusch

ISBN 10: 0262032570 / ISBN 13: 9780262032575

Published by MIT Press, USA, 1999

About this Item

HARDBACK IN JACKET 1999. 23.5x15.5cm. xi+212 pages with index. At the top of the front paste-down is a neat seven letter name. No other inscriptions. Clean & tight. Flat pages. Jacket is not torn. Jacket is now under clear removable covers. Dispatched ROYAL MAIL FIRST CLASS with TRACKING next working day or sooner securely boxed in cardboard. ref H511. The Shape of Actions: What Humans and Machines Can Do by Harry Collins & Martin Kusch.

Seller Inventory # 029683

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Shape of Actions: What Humans and Machines Can Do
• Publisher: MIT Press, USA
• Publication Date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0262032570
• ISBN 13: 9780262032575
• Binding: Hardback
• Condition: Very Good Plus
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good Plus
• Weight: 500 grams

About this title

Synopsis

What can humans do? What can machines do? How do humans delegate actions to machines?In this book, Harry Collins and Martin Kusch combine insights from sociology and philosophy toprovide a novel answer to these increasingly important questions.The authors begin by distinguishingbetween two basic types of intentional behavior, which they call polimorphic actions andmimeomorphic actions. Polimorphic actions (such as writing a love letter) are ones that communitymembers expect to vary with social context. Mimeomorphic actions (such a swinging a golf club) donot vary. Although machines cannot act, they can mimic mimeomorphic actions. Mimeomorphic actionsare thus the crucial link between what humans can do and what machines cando.

Following a presentation of their detailed categorization of actions, theauthors apply their approach to a broad range of human-machine interactions and to learning. Keyexamples include bicycle riding and the many varieties of writing machines. They also show how theirtheory can be used to explain the operation of organizations such as restaurants and armies.Finally, they look at a historical case -- the technological development of the air pump -- applyingtheir categorization of actions to the processes of mechanization and automation. Automation, theyargue, can occur only where what we want to bring about can be brought about through mimeomorphicaction.

About the Author

Harry Collins is Professor at the Center for the Study of Knowledge, Expertise, and Science, University of Wales. Martin Kusch is Lecturer in the Department for the History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge.