4.0026 Computers, Conceptualized and Gendered (93)

Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Thu, 10 May 90 16:56:22 EDT

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 4, No. 0026. Thursday, 10 May 1990.


(1) Date: Wed, 09 May 90 21:52 PDT (26 lines)
From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET>
Subject: Re: 4.0014 Conceptualizing Computers (84)

(2) Date: Thu, 10 May 90 07:52 EST (26 lines)
From: <J_CERNY@UNHH>
Subject: two more comments on gender

(3) Date: Thu, 10 May 90 08:43:14 EDT (19 lines)
From: Sally Webster <ACDSPW@SUVM>
Subject: The mind in the machine and vice versa

(4) Date: Thu, 10 May 90 08:18:44 PDT (14 lines)
From: 6500lisi@UCSBUXA.BITNET
Subject: Re: 4.0020 Gender (48)

(5) Date: Thu, 10 May 90 08:27:54 PDT (8 lines)
From: 6500lisi@UCSBUXA.BITNET
Subject: Re: 4.0014 Conceptualizing Computers (84)

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 09 May 90 21:52 PDT
From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET>
Subject: Re: 4.0014 Conceptualizing Computers (84)

But all this is really silly chatter, at best chitchat. McCorduck is a
charming disseminator of enthusiasm, but it is not, ultimately serious.
I, who am engaged with poetry and not thinking in the usual
ratiocinative, academic sense, dare to suggest this. Thinking is not,
pace Turing, something one is able to do easily or consciously.
Reflecting on thought, as it is delivered to one, is something else,
and what is usually mistaken for thinking. I rather agree with Bergson
who observed that it is precisely the activity of thought that one
cannot observe without ceasing to think, as one, from a rapidly moving
vehicle cannot see both the moving landscape and single objects in it,
a phenomenon we have all witnessed and wondered at,I dare say, from
trains and cars, from childhood on in this century. Machines do not
think as we think, because we can desribe and program, or ordain their
"thought," to use the French term for the computer. We can program it.
Thought is something else. Who is, who thinks, for example, the
thought of saying this equation is right or wrong? The best recent
discussion of this matter that I am familiar with is Stanley Rosen's
most important book, THE LIMITS OF ANALYSIS. Most of the computer
people are analysts, and dont really seem to know how to thnk about
thinking. I disliek seeing technologists get all mystical about this
thing of theirs. Not mine. My macs are neither he nm or shes, but
almost always LEMONS. And that goes for the programming these days too.
The are not suckers, to quote someone, but they to do indeed such.
Kessler at UCLA

(2) --------------------------------------------------------------31----
Date: Thu, 10 May 90 07:52 EST
From: <J_CERNY@UNHH>
Subject: two more comments on gender

Here is another anecdote about computers and gender. Those involved
in the "coupling" of computers have habitually referred to male and
female connectors. In fact, our campus tech staff (male), when
called upon to make an adapter cable, calls them "gender benders."
I was very interested several years ago when one of the tech guys
remarked that many of their female service customers (much more
numerous with the proliferation of PCs, compared to the "old days")
did not like the use of male and female terminology for these
connectors. I asked what he would use instead, and he said "plugs"
and "sockets." Now, this always lurks in my mind when the occasional
conversation turns to connector-gender!!

Those on HUMANIST who, like myself, are not linguists, may be
interested nonetheless in parts of George Lakoff's book, "Women,
Fire and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind,"
1987, U. of Chicago Press. (I may have originally seen the
reference to Lakoff on this list a year or so ago.) He has
interesting examples of how various words in a language may be
placed in what, to the outsider, may seem incongrous categories.

Jim Cerny, Computing and Information Services, Univ. N.H.
j_cerny@unhh
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------26----
Date: Thu, 10 May 90 08:43:14 EDT
From: Sally Webster <ACDSPW@SUVM>
Subject: The mind in the machine and vice versa

I've been reading the mail about computer gender, anthropomorphizing
computers, and metaphorizing (!) with great interest. The way
computer lingo has invaded the general culture and is used to
explain or describe human actions and mental states is every bit
as interesting. Looking at the metaphors we use (and have been
using for years before computers arrived), I think humans tend
to glom onto the newest technological language and apply it to
themselves. "...broke the mould after he was born..." "...he's
gone off the rails..." "... the old ticker is still going strong..."
"...re-programming myself for the single life..."

J. David Bolter wrote a whole book about this, TURING'S MAN, which I
recommend to you all. Bolter gives a perspective to this question, and
as icing on the cake, he's an entertaining writer.
(4) --------------------------------------------------------------20----
Date: Thu, 10 May 90 08:18:44 PDT
From: 6500lisi@UCSBUXA.BITNET
Subject: Re: 4.0020 Gender (48)

Perhaps the masculinization of the term, "computer", has to do with
the fact that computers use extensive programs that at least in the
beginning were composed by men. (I have in mind the computer sex
programs for the Macintosh-- I don't know if you are aware of them,but
they are obviously created by and for men, allowing the computer user
to have "control" over the object on the screen). It's an hypothesis,
anyway...
Lisa Garmire
University of CA, Santa Barbara
Dept. of English
(5) --------------------------------------------------------------14----
Date: Thu, 10 May 90 08:27:54 PDT
From: 6500lisi@UCSBUXA.BITNET
Subject: Re: 4.0014 Conceptualizing Computers (84)

I think it's all a question of power.

Lisa Garmire
UC Santa Barbara