Uninterruptible Action

I've been pondering one of the finer points of praxeology - namely, the necessary and sufficient causes for an action or course of action to be declared uninterruptible.   If that sounds a bit finicky and tedious, it likely is - and what follows is probably going to be boring, but I sense it may be necessary.

Uninterruptibility

An action is deemed interruptible when the actor cannot or will not be dissuaded from its completion.

• "Cannot" is purely functional.   Inertia will carry the motion through to its completion.
• "Will not" is psychological.   The actor is so committed to the completion of the action that he will choose not to refrain.

In either instance, the expectation is that the actor will certainly complete the action because there is no perception or reasonable expectation of a functional or psychological interruption.

An "action" is (or may be) a component of a task.   It seems unlikely that there would be an uninterruptible task because that would require each action to be uninterruptible, and for there to be no opportunity for interruption between each action and the one following it.

Another persnickety distinction should be made between "interruption" and "prevention."  Prevention occurs prior to the initiation of an action.  A person who lacks the capacity or resources to begin the action is not interrupted in the course of performing it, but prevented from undertaking it prior to initiating action.

Functional Interruption

Functional interruptions are physical phenomena that prevent the task from being completed.    An object that suddenly obstructs an attempt to move from one place to another in a straight line is a functional interruption, particularly if there is no way to get around it.

In general, functional interruption is a factor of the environment, and typically consists of an unexpected or unpredicted change in the conditions in which the action is taken.

Arguably, failure to recognize a condition that would prevent an action serves as a functional interruption when it is recognized.  If the actor had knowledge before initiating the action, he would have been prevented - but if he discovers this after the action has been initiated, than it constitutes an interruption.

Psychological Interruption

Psychological interruptions are factors that will undermine the actor's will to complete an action - or in smaller words, that will make him quit.   The sudden realization that the action that was originally planned will not achieve the results desired, even if it is completed according to plan, is a psychological interruption because it is still functionally possible to complete the task, but there is no longer motivation to do so.

Psychological interruptions may be in reaction to the environment, but their nature is always internal - the sensory data about the environment is interpreted and combined with somatic state data to result in an assessment that impacts motivation.

It might also be accurate to suggest that psychological interruptions are always surprises to the actor.   If he had known or predicted that he would lose the will to complete a task, he might have thought better of initiating the action.   He may change his mind in the course of performing an action, but before initiating it he was certain that he had the will to complete it.

Aren't All Interruptions Psychological?

I sense that the argument could be made that most, though not all, interruptions are psychological in their nature: when the actor recognizes the functional interruption, a psychological interruption follows quick on its heels as he realizes that the functional interruption will prevent the action from having its desired results and will lose his motivation to complete the action.

However, it is also possible for a functional interruption to fail to be recognized at all - and as a result, an accident will occur.  That is to say that if a person who is walking a desired path recognizes a sudden obstruction, he will choose to stop walking, and this is psychological.

But if the actor fails to recognize the obstruction and walks right into it, the psychological interruption does not take place and the action has continued until it has been functionally prevented.  In that sense the result of the action is unintentional and there was no reasonable opportunity to recognize and react on a psychological level.

Is there any value in this?

I sensed from the start that this entire meditation would be tedious and likely gratuitous, but there is some value to be gained in experience design: the "happy path" of task schematization presumes that no interruptions will occur in the course of completing each action in the task, and contingencies are planned for predicted interruptions or distractions.

However, this is based on the presumption that interruptions will be recognized and can be acted upon.   Unless it is recognized that certain actions are functionally or psychologically uninterruptible, contingencies will be missed or falsely identified - hence considering the interruptability of action is necessary to accurate experience design.