Hello all, I would like to thank all for fleshing out this little transgression I seem to have followed from Julian. This will be my final message on this topic, as I feel the thread has passed. Perhaps to be returned to in a future topic.
I feel some hesitation to reply as I am unfamiliar with many of the references discussed below. I've decided to take a crack at it anyhow. It seems to me this issue is not one of analogue vs digital at all, but an issue of complexity and encoding. I can follow the thinking that an analogue signal may be directly accessible to interpretation, as one could follow, say the movement of a mic diaphragm, and see the corresponding change in voltage. This seems to assume there is only one mapping between the movement of the mic element, and the signal in the wire. Lets take a more complex analogue system as an example: What of a system that uses filters to break the signal into a number of signals of differing frequency? Each would not be as easy to link to the movement of the mic element. In short a single signal has been encoded into the variance of multiple signals. This seems analogous to a digital system, and thus I don't see the discontinuity between analogue and digital systems. I am also not convinced the requirement for an interface is any different in both analogue and digital cases. In the example above the mic itself is the interface, translating sound waves into an invisible electrical signal. You could argue that this interface is more simple, as the signal resembles the sound waves, but there are still many different ways in which the movement of the mic could be translated into changes in the electrical signal. Some of these mappings are more obvious than others, but because there are different options, there is a requirement for an interface designed with a particular mapping in mind. I see this as no different than in a digital system. >From a physical perspective of following the causation in the system (I've already mentioned an interface is always required) nothing is arbitrary. I don't agree that a symbol that requires interpretation is arbitrary, but I do agree that it may be slippery (at least for the human interacting with the system). The reason why I'm looking so closely at this is because of the importance of computational conceptions in cognitive and neurological science. The brain is often considered a "physical symbol system" where the state of activity in all neurons is a representation. Decoding this representation involves reading the representations in the brain. This is the basis of almost all fMRI work, which is about reading representations by reading the activity of neurons (see Gallant). Are these representations also arbitrary according to Peirceian semiotics? I completely agree that critical engineering must go beyond the materiality of the hardware and also engage in the aspects of meaning and social context. I think Julian Oliver does this well, and I think reasonably described in the manifesto. Thanks for your comments Lasse, B. Bogart www.ekran.org/ben On 12-02-15 04:18 AM, Lasse Scherffig wrote: > The problem here is the one highlighted by Magnus Lawrie quoting > Andersen and Pold. However, it is not just Sutherland's separation of > data processing and visual representation creating that problem but it > directly follows from digital computation: While in analog computing, > movement, voltages or whatever have a direct causal and indexical (in > terms of Peirceian semiotics) relation of processing and representation, > digital computation is different. You cannot read a digital memory by > merely looking at it (as Pias has for example shown for the William's > Tube [1]), whereas computation of the analog differential analyzer by > Vannevar Bush was described as giving "the man who studies it a grasp of > the innate meaning of the differential equation" [2]. The only way to > read a digital representation is to use an interface attaching signs to > it. And because the relation of these signs to the digital is arbitrary, > they are Peirceian symbols. > > It is because of this problematic (symbolic) relation of computation and > representation in the digital realm that computation today not only > presupposes an abstraction reducing phenomena to descriptions, > descriptions to formalisms and formalisms to algorithms [3] (which is a > huge problem in itself). But at the same time it entails a concretion of > digital processes that by necessity is symbolic and thus "dishonest". > That's why I use the term "Feedback Machine" to denote the combination > of "worldless" digital computation with a Cybernetic coupling to the > world the digital is devoid of [4]. Critical engineering thus cannot > stop at understanding some essential "inner workings" of computing > machinery (which is important but of course yields the problem of where > to stop -- do you need to know logics, programming or building a > computer from raw materials?) but also an understanding of the processes > of abstraction and concretion that constantly couple the phenomenal and > formal world -- or signs and signals (a concept originally by Frieder > Nake [3]) -- is much needed. > > Best, > Lasse. > > [1] Claus Pias, Computer Spiel Welten, Dissertation: Weimar, 2000, > http://e-pub.uni-weimar.de/opus4/frontdoor/index/index/docId/35 p. 55 > [2] Claus Pias, Computer Spiel Welten, p. 45 > [3] Frieder Nake and Susanne Grabowski, Human-computer interaction > viewed as pseudo-communication. Knowledge Based Systems 14 (2001), 441-447 > [4] e.g. p. 4 on "(ping) pong" in the in/compatible world of the news > _______________________________________________ empyre forum [email protected] http://www.subtle.net/empyre
