Explain the H-LAM/T system.
In 1963, Douglas Engelbart, using the systems approach that was ubiquitous in the 1960s, defined a system for how human beings augment their natural capabilities in order to solve complex problems. He called his conception the "H-LAM/T System," which was (awkward) shorthand for "Human using Language, Artifacts, and Methodology, in which he is Trained."
Engelbart saw modern society as the complex product of a human history in which people had used experience and experiment to define new words, invent new things, and design new procedures in order to perform their tasks more easily and efficiently. These accumulated words, things, and procedures (along with the training that educated the young in them), taken together and in interaction with one another, comprise our culture. Therefore (shades of Marshall McLuhan!), any non-trivial augmentation of human capabilities affects not just the ability augmented, but all of society. Thus (shades of Neil Postman!), this augmentation needs to be studied at a societal level as well as at the level of the immediate effect of the change. In Engelbart's view, this study would be best performed through the hierarchies and interactions of processes proposed by the H-LAM/T system.
Discuss the use of hypertext in the man-artifact interface.
The H-LAM/T system has two domains, human and artifact, which correspond to the two relevant types of physical elements in the world: man, and the tools he builds for himself.
Engelbart defines three types of processes for this two-domain system: explicit-human (performed by man without tools), explicit-artifact (performed by tools without man), and composite (performed by man using tools). All composite functions are what Engelbart calls higher-level functions; functions that can be broken down into more basic processes from within the human repetory. Any composite function can be broken down into basic processes which are all either entirely explicit-human or explicit-artifact. Because of this, composite processes require a man-artifact interface (in English, a method for a man to use his tools) so that these more basic processes can work together.
Hypertext is one such composite process (Engelbart referred to hypertext as a form of "automated external symbol manipulation"). By using a digital computer to edit, represent and link text, man enhances his linguistic and conceptual abilities, and improves his ability to communicate. By making literature easier to explore, hypertext would make it easier to comprehend. Engelbart argued that computers could and should be used to enhance humanistic learning as well as scientific learning.
Explain the Neo-Whorfian hypothesis.
What Engelbart calls the "Whorfian hypothesis" was written by B.L. Whorf in his 1956 book Language, Thought, and Reality. This hypothesis states: "the world view of a culture is limited by the structure of the language which the culture uses." I have heard a version of this hypothesis expressed more simply as: We cannot think what we do not know how to say.
Engelbart expands this into the "Neo-Whorfian" hypothesis by including symbolic expression as well as language: "Both the language used by a culture, and the capability for effective intellectual activity, are directly affected during their evolution by the means by which individuals control the external manipulation of symbols." Or, more simply: We cannot think what we do not know how to represent.
This hypothesis is the basis for Engelbart's call for further research into the H-LAM/T system. Computers have the potential to improve symbolic representation. By learning better ways to represent, we learn better ways to think (or, in Engelbartian terms, we construct culturally appropriate hierarchies of explicit-human processes). By learning better ways to think, society advances.
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