Ourselves and Computers: Difference in Minds and Machines eBook

This book explores how it is that we can know things and show responsibility in all that we do. It challenges the popular image of computers as information and knowledge processors, and opens up old questions about information informing ourselves – questions that are made urgent by new information technology. The author develops an appreciation of knowledge-free technology, following the tradition of nonsensical formalisms (drawing on Heidegger and Wittgenstein, and on experience in Japan); these we use to inform our feeling and knowing about things in the sciences and in the arts – and in our daily business practices. The book is designed to appeal to people engaged in fields where the use of computers is actively promoted – business, design and engineering. It is also written for those involved in developing the technology – systems designers, programmers and manufacturers, since they have the task of devising and promoting systems intended for use by people not specialised in the technology.