Why humans are not like coffee machines?

While preparing for the first meeting of the so-called Development Group (the work of which shall result in an elaborated description of our understanding of Learning to Learn) of our L2L-project I came across an article I wrote some years ago about "Systems Thinking and Learning". Then it was an effort to process some of the "input" I received through attending a long-term training course in Austria on "Systems Thinking in Education".
It reminded me of the inspiring thoughts of Heinz von Foerster, an austro-american philosopher who only died a few a years ago. He has created the term "Non-trivial machines" for human beings to describe his understanding how people process information or impulses coming from outside. A "Trivial machine" according to him is a system where there is a logical connection between input and output, cause and effect. The logic can be explained, endlessly repeated and programmed, eg. a coffee machine: when you pour in water and add coffee beans, press the button coffee to drink will come out.
A lotof efforts in education were and are marked by the principle of "trivialisation" of human beings or with this "input" we will "produce" the desired output. In reality all human beings process these "inputs" (information, experiences, conversations, etc.) in a very individual way determined by various factors such as prior experiences, socialisation, perceived needs, etc.

Now, I was asking myself how much also in Non-Formal Education we "trivialize" educational processes - "What have you learnt'" as the key-question of any evaluation. We choose a certain activity "because the group, the participants need this now". How many assumptions about the learning needs of participants do we make to prepare a programme?
Now dealing more with learning to learning I realize how important it is to support participants to identify real, authentic learning needs - which often is not easy at all!! It needs a certain level of self-awareness and reflection to be able to identify those; and sometimes it needs going through a whole educational activity to at the end being able to identify real learning needs. So perhaps we shall ask in evaluations at the end much more "What do you need to learn now?" But this is perhaps as an outcome not so attractive for organisers and sponsors of training courses. A dilemma, is it???