and output information to produce, say, a printed memo from a document typed at the keyboard. In either case, the interaction of the individual with the external world through sensori-motor channels forms the basis for all subsequent ability to abstract the myriad components of the world, thus not only comprehending the actions of the various components, but from that abstraction being able to project an understanding of a well known situation to a less familiar one. Sensori-motor channels, by virtue of their gathering of information and their projection of action, provide the foundation of metaphorical extension that feeds thought and consciousness. A group of persons, or of computers, performs a particular type of information processing characterized by the exchange in parity of data and commands between the participants, following rules of engagement that permit the information to actually be meaningful. This characterization, along with the rules of engagement, forms a significant piece of what we have termed policy.

So, we seek to compare humans and computers, first as individuals, and then as participants in groups. For isolated persons, we consider their foundational impetus for interactions to be well characterized in the hierarchy of needs of Maslow, which starts by considering the physiological requirements of individuals, such as food, air and water. This more primitive impetus for interactions then evolves to successive hierarchical levels encompassing security, interpersonal relationships, and so on. Ostensibly, a higher order stimulus for human interaction is found in the concepts of self-actualization and then transcendence, the ultimate realization of one’s given potential and the projection of the environment that facilitates that realization. For an individual computer, there is not yet such a formal model related to the reason (stimulus) for a specific computer interaction; that’s part of what we’re about with this book. So, we’ll start out by establishing a parallel between Maslow’s scale and a computer’s needs beginning with the requirement for electricity (food), integrity of processing (being able to process instructions without crashing, which is related to security), the capability to establish communication channels with other computers (relationships), and on including self-actualization, which we would characterize as the use of applications maximizing the capabilities of the computers, be they in terms of processing unit, memory or input/output channels.

Concerning group interactions, we’ll consider first computers. As we noted in the previous chapter, computer interactions can be characterized by a rather formal consideration of interaction protocols through the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model of data interchange. This model views interactions as occurring through a stack of protocols at the bottom of which we find the medium of communication, for example a cable, or radio waves. Building on this physical basis, the model suggests we then proceed to establish a link between two computers by mutual recognition. Given a pair-wise connection, we can then extend the interaction environment to more than two computers, and so on, until a multitude of computers are able to communicate information in a reliable, ubiquitous manner.

Our observation is that humans follow similar conventions, starting with the physical means of exchange (say using voice or signals), ways to start a conversation (e.g., greetings), the possibility to introduce more than two persons, methods of coordination, and so on, until people around a table can, for example, conduct a meeting with some meaningful results. Or, at the other end of the interaction spectrum, they can engage in a ferocious war to the death!

To finish this rapid overview of human and computer information processing capabilities, we need to consider that in a group, humans and computers express their individualities. We can say that in effect, the information architecture of humans and computers is built out of two components, the individual one and the group one, each building its capabilities on top of the other. This is to say that, for a group to operate, individual capabilities have to be adjusted to permit establishment of

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