11.397 The unconscious is structured like a programming language

Humanist Discussion Group (humanist@kcl.ac.uk)
Tue, 11 Nov 1997 23:21:27 +0000 (GMT)

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 11, No. 397.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
<http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
<http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>

Date: Mon, 10 Nov 1997 23:04:56 -0500
From: John_Lavagnino@brown.edu
Subject: The unconscious is structured like a programming language

From: John_Lavagnino@Brown.edu

Here is a comment made by Tom Nairn, "The Departed Spirit", London
Review of Books, 30 October 1997, 3, 5-6, in the middle of an
interminable discussion of Diana Spencer's death:

[...] it is not an exaggeration to say that on the night of 30-31
August something was killed in each member of the public. In today's
computerese, it could be imagined as something like a Java-language
`applet' embedded in most Britannic craniums: that is, the micro-code
of emotional authentication and orientation through which a community
is triggered, maintained, occasionally celebrated---but also
controlled.

I hope that Sun Microsystems will take action to halt the apparent
security holes in their software that are revealed here. Java applets
were supposed to be incapable of taking over a host computer in this
abusive manner.

John Lavagnino

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