Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 18, No. 001.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/
www.princeton.edu/humanist/
Submit to: humanist@princeton.edu
Date: Fri, 07 May 2004 08:31:53 +0100
From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk>
Subject: happy 17th birthday!
In Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
(Vintage, 2004), the protagonist and narrator, a brilliant teenage boy with
Asperger’s Syndrome, observes that “Prime numbers are what is left when you
have taken all the patterns away. I think prime numbers are like life”, he
says. “They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even
if you spent all of your time thinking about them.” (p. 15) Today the prime
number in question is 17 the number of years Humanist has been in
existence. I do not mean to imply anything magical about the ambiguous fact
of Humanist’s age 17 years old but in its 18th year, and in its 17th year
last year. But the idea of patterns beyond our ability to specify them is
central to what we do, and a prime-numbered birthday is as good an occasion
as any to notice the fact.
Making the question of what might be central to our practice mathematical
is also a good way to mark another step in a coming of age. As a science of
pure form without content was it Russell who said that mathematics is not
*about* anything at all? mathematics requires an extraordinary ability to
think in the abstract that I, for one, do not possess. But mathematics is
(as mathematicans are wont to say) “beautiful”, and more importantly for
us, computation is deeply rooted in mathematical questions. So, sooner or
later a computing humanist wanting to stand on solid granite needs to look
into the matter, or so recently I have been telling myself. This is not to
advocate a mystical foundationalism, rather to respect and discover one of
the two main strands of computation’s history. It is to strive for a better
answer to the question, where are we from, and what is it like there?
But the mathematical, arithmetic reality that Humanist faces on this
birthday is the brutal fact of the daily number of unwanted, polluting
messages in the data-stream where it swims. Throughout its history members
of Humanist have from time to time complained of infoglut, beginning
approximately 1 month after the first message was sent out, when the medium
was so new we all took it as imperative that each message be meaningful. On
each occasion the rising tide provoked an innovation (Humanist's digesting
was one of these) or exhortations to adjust. This time the (mis)infoglut
is, obviously, beyond our ability to control, at least not satisfactorily.
I have to assure people repeatedly that if a message goes astray, if they
don't hear from me, it's highly unlikely to be because I've decided to
ignore them, most likely that their messages have bee dragged down by
obscene offers and promises from people I would never care to meet. Be that
as it may, the problem for Humanist is the problem of carrying on a
conversation against such a cacaphony.
Permit me the perhaps unwarranted conclusion that our 17 years together
attests to the value we place in this long conversation, which is as far as
I am concerned what humanities computing in the end amounts to. The term
"lone scholar" is these days almost a term of contempt, just as
"collaboration" is so often held up as an unquestioned (and opposite)
virtue, so often without the virtue-holder-upper having much of an idea
what collaboration is about, when it is *really* collaboration and not just
getting other people to do what you don't want to do yourself. Humanists
have seldom if ever been unengaged in a slow, stately conversation that is
in fact collaborative. The sociological history of knowledge teaches us
that. Everything we do is for and with others, even if we hardly ever see
them. But, yes, there are aspects of this normal working together that the
digital medium gives us the chance to do better. Central to that is
conversation -- saying things so that we may come to know, true things if
we can, of course, but more importantly, truth-tending things. That's what
Humanist has always been about, if I am not badly mistaken. About learning
by taking risks, like how to ride a bicycle.
We're always worrying ourselves about whether humanities computing has made
its mark in the world and on the world. It seems to me, however, that quiet
change, though harder to detect, is sometimes much better and more powerful
in its effects than the noisy, obviously mark-making, position-taking kind.
If during these 17 years Humanist has contributed to the world, it has done
so very quietly by nature, like conversation, leaving hardly a trace. It's
like teaching, whose real effects are impossible to measure and which
requires considerable faith to continue doing, and so must be done for the
love of it if the effects are to be good. "Do what you do only out of
love." Just so.
Yours,
WM
Dr Willard McCarty | Senior Lecturer | Centre for Computing in the
Humanities | King's College London | Strand | London WC2R 2LS || +44 (0)20
7848-2784 fax: -2980 || willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk
www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/wlm/
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