Inside Man: The Discipline of Modeling Human Ways of Being

by Mihnea C. Moldoveanu

Inside Man presents readers with an exercise in modeling human ways of being―thinking, feeling, acting. This book does not merely introduce models, but also attempts to teach modeling and to produce, within the reader, the predispositions and attitudes of the a distance from the individual whose behavior is modeled, an engineering approach to the model-building process, a (self)-critical approach to the model testing and elaboration process, and a pedagogical and a therapeutic approach to enacting and communicating models. Author Mihnea C. Moldoveanu makes the process and the phenomenon of modeling transparent and explicit, and clarifies the reasons for which modeling human behavior has to be an interactive process between the modeler and the modeled. This perspective situates Inside Man at the intersection of analytical and computational thinking about rationality, reasoning, choice and thinking, and the tradition of action science and action research.

296 pages, Hardcover

First published January 28, 2011

Reviews

[Benji · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ascriptive science, a science of skillful and incisive coaching, will help us build the future compassionate computer, an everpresent superfriend and supershrink.

A computational mirror that shows a detailed image of your own behavior and then asks:

"Is this what you want?"
"Is this how you want to be?"

A computational Sloterdijk, raising your self-awareness and allowing you to advance beyond the layperson's less-than-perfect approach to activity and thinking.