Interfaces need not be corporeal discontinuities
That systematic interfaces need not coincide with corporeal surfaces can be shown by example. Large organizations, like governments, corporations, and universities, are almost always subdivided into various divisions, departments, and units. But the correspondence between these demarcations and corporeal boundaries is at best haphazard, and never essential. Indeed, as more and more business is conducted via worldwide communication networks, the physical loca- tions of personnel and data become practically irrelevant. What matter instead are the access codes, permission levels, distribution lists,private addresses, priority orderings, and so on, that determine where information flows and what gets attended to. It is the structure of these, ultimately, that determines departmentalization and hierarchy.
—Haugeland, J., 2000: Mind Embodied and Embedded, pp. 8-9. Chapter 9 in Haugeland, J., 2000: Having Thought: Essays in the Metaphysics of Mind. Harvard University Press.
author:haugeland-john book:haugeland-having-thought paper:haugeland-mind-embodied-and-embedded snip:incorporeal-interfaces interface properties society organization hierarchy communication order modularization list:mind-body-world
see-also:paper:weber-political-economy-open-source (“modularization”)
