Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 14, No. 187.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
<http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
<http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>
[1] From: "Pat Moran" <pjmoran@gdsys.net> (20)
Subject: Re: 14.0180 machines, pride and pure research?
[2] From: lachance@chass.utoronto.ca (Francois Lachance) (75)
Subject: accidents and essence: more on cyber guiding
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 20 Aug 2000 16:05:55 +0100
From: "Pat Moran" <pjmoran@gdsys.net>
Subject: Re: 14.0180 machines, pride and pure research?
It's always a hoot to hear people make pronouncements on
what they will "never" do or about things which will "never" occur.
This very gentlemanly reading of pompous behavior ["for some
that cloud of unknowing is intolerable"] surely applies to
Rousseau's comments in his "Confessions, Part I, Book 1"--
"I am commencing an undertaking, hitherto without precedent,
and which will never find an imitator."
The idea that autobiography could be "without precedent" and the
contention that no one could imitate his efforts always inspire
my previously spark-less adult military students to quiet chuckles
and/or peals of laughter. Perhaps they're thinking of how
Rousseau's research reveals, rather than requires the "cloudy
state of mind." One needn't be considering technology to
get a laugh out of academics and psychics.
----------------
Patricia J. Moran, FSU
Ed. Foundations and Policy Studies
312 Stone Bldg., Tallahassee, FL 32306
850-575-7787
pjm0362@mailer.fsu.edu
--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 20 Aug 2000 16:06:18 +0100
From: lachance@chass.utoronto.ca (Francois Lachance)
Subject: accidents and essence: more on cyber guiding
Hello Stephanie
I have been mulling over your question about who "computes" in relation to
someone else's (Chris McMahon's) reference to Paul Virilio [the question
of diaster] (who knows what an archive check of Humanist will reveal with
a search for "Virilio" and its alternative spellings). Dear me, what a
convoluted sentence wondering off in a orthographicly inspired rift
verging on information overload.
There is not one diaster but many. And it is scholars able to move away
from the keyboard, the slide projector and even the chalk board who are
able to continue to engage an audience. When the technologies
mediating the network of social selves breaks down, it is the capital H
Humanities people to the rescue while the capital C computing folks do the
hardware/software fix. Diaster invites what rhetoricians call the
ekphrastic moment. The power of the Humanities side of the
Computing-Humanities couple is in the ability to begin to describe (and to
start the description over).
Now, description is a prerequiste for computation.
Cognitively, descriptions need not be verbalized. Psychologists are
sometimes fond of informing us about the assumptions we make in perceiving
the world. Sociologists are even fonder of this activity.
It may be safe to assume that "the use of computers" involves some set
of descriptions about this activity. Is it fair to reframe your question
about "computing" in terms of conscious use of computers a la Willard
reporting on Marilyn Deegan's Glasgow remarks on the nature of digital
scholarship? This conscious/unconscious dichotomy of course leads to the
need/want to draw other lines: programming versus using a software
application; encoding versus formating. If "computing" becomes the
umbrella term for a plurality of activities of an analytic and artistic
sort, the real institutional investment difficulties do not disappear
(the are always based on some calculation of waste/gain). However a vague
ecology of shifting cognitive activities becomes discernable and allows
perphas a turn to your fundamental questions about the nature of the
"computing" model.
Yes, the email user computes. Yes, the Java programmer computes. As agents
in a Minskian society of mind, they are elements of a social
macine and either actor-network theory or basic economics can account for
their computations in the sense of calculations apportioning attention
(time and resources) to certain activities.
But what does it mean to compute as a humanist? I think Willard provided a
bit of an answer by way of a question:
Willard wrote:
> I'm hardly "computing" in any way important to us? Yes, I
suppose so, if we
> consider the matter in the terms in which I pursue it. But what if we
> consider my MOOing or Decretum-searching historically, sociologically,
> philosophically? Is there only an accidental relationship between the fact
> that I use a computer and what I do with it?
>
It is precisely accidents that interest Humanities scholars. I do thank
you for your posting asking for error free citiations. The delightful
"neuro" and "necro" pair had me wondering if in Roman divinatory practice
the slayer of the beast and the reader of the entrails were the same
person (in body and spirit) because I was trying to work out the
programmer/user metaphorics in terms of travelling versus building
cyberspace. And the year of republication (1994) of the 1984 Gibson novel
struck a chord as about the time that the World Wide Web was opened up to
commercial interests...
Just about the time I wrote:
Just as a Turing machine's configuration can be interpreted as states
of being or as instructions, a story can be considered an apparatus
processing descriptions and questions, figures and sequences.
and
A story is at once product and apparatus of production. It is an
autopoetic structure. It will take a picture, a question, a description,
an imperative and transform either it, itself, or both. A story is a
machine that learns.
See http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~lachance/S4E.HTM
In short if people are telling stories using computers, they are
computing. [not an argument for any one who would want to keep semiosis
and perception apart -- keep mind from informing body].
Once again, thanks for providing the launch pad into some enjoyable
mulling.
-- Francois Lachance, Scholar-at-large
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~lachance
Member of the Evelyn Letters Project
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~dchamber/evelyn/evtoc.htm
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