ABSTRACT
This first chapter develops a theoretical structure for the science of human-machine systems. This structure is based on the premise that technology is the principal method through which humans expand their ranges of perception and action in order to understand and control the world around them. The theory presents a broad rationale for the contemporary impetus in human-machine systems development and the historical motivations for its growth. Unlike any other interdisciplinary fusion of knowledge, the science of human-machine systems is more than a convenient collaboration among proximal areas of knowledge. Through the identification of opportunities and constraints that derive from the interplay of human, machine, task, and environment, I point to this area of study as the vital bridge between evolving biological and non-biological forms of intelligence. Absence of such a bridge will see the certain demise of one and the fundamental impoverishment, if not the extinction, of the other.
