To be honest, I'm not exactly sure what to make of this post. I'm sure readers will notice I brought up some of these points in class already. I was reading from the notes that would become the basis for this post. I've been studying a lot of linguistic and programming stuff for my other classes, so my mind has been fixating on metaphors from those ideas and concepts. Since it was helping me sort of wrap my mind around the ideas from both topics, I decided to go with writing this, although it's rather wonky, to say the least. At this point, my understanding of all these concepts has already developed beyond the explanation I presented here (I finally figured out how to nest functions, which is essential for avoiding the ridiculous string you will see below). Either way, as I believe the process of working through these thoughts helped me, I figured I might as well present them here.
Inter texts, Chapter 2, Kathleen McCormick
Cryptology /Linguistic Thoughts
Form, coding, deciphering, substance
I.A. Richardson managed to stump students with poetry, as the unconventional format made the text indecipherable. This made me wonder “how far can a poem alter the form of a text before we no longer consider it writing?” For example, what do we consider a valid canvas space? If I scatter 12pt letters at random locations in the universe, can I call the results a textual poem? How about a poem written in a set of different letters, one outside the realms of human knowledge? Or, is it the observer that makes a poem a poem? In which case we descend into the problem of solipsistic usefulness, in that such questions seem to inevitably evolve into arguments on whether “everything is subjective or nothing is subjective.”
However, this does serve as a nice segue into a question raised by McKormick, which is whether the binary nature of the 1/0 programming language known known as “binary” leads to binary dichotomized thinking. Here, I think McKormick is getting the order of operations wrong, and therefore misattributing the cause of dichotomized thinking.
I read this wonderful article on Walter Pitts a few weeks ago. In addition to being an engaging read, the article has some interesting lessons on the origin of binary computation and the human brain. I could spend a lot of time trying to explain the intricacies (and indeed do so a bit further on in this post), but to wildly oversimplify everything: it explains how computer programming, and binary in particular, were actually modeled off of the structure of how scientists hypothesize neuron networks would work. From what I understand, the core of this research and the subsequent results still stand today, albeit with significant refinement and adjustment.
If this is the case, then I believe it is fair to assume that the dichotomous binary thinking of modern humans is not a reflection of digital technology, but a reflection of human nature on something of an overwhelmingly ingrained scale. As McKormick notes, it is possible to become critically aware and blur these lines, but it seems like these corporeal forms are inherently destined to certain limits of creativity.
When McCormick mentioned that “…bourgeois conceptions of individualism can […] impede students from being receptive to larger ideological critique,” I was reminded of Christopher Langan. Mr. Langan likes to call himself “the smartest man in the world” (when measured by IQ), and has produced a grand theory of everything called “The Cognitive Theoretic Model of the Universe”.
The theory, presented on a website fresh from 1998, is ostensibly an extremely sophisticated and well-developed work. Yet, most likely, the most you’ve heard of him is an anecdotal references to the fact that the smartest man in America mostly works as a bouncer to pay his bills. This is largely credited to the fact that respectable scientific and philosophical institutions have laughed off the brunt of the theories, due to Langan’s lack of awareness of developments in fields. In essence, the entire thing is regarded as a really impressive attempt at independently rediscovering a number of the theories and philosophies of people from hundreds of years ago. Which is, of course, a truly impressive feat. But nobody remembers the guy who can count to 5,000 decimals in pi either, because stupid feats don’t get recognition until after you’re already famous. For the most part. The internet is trying its hardest to fix that, but I don’t really have an opinion on whose stupid feats we should care about. Stupid pet tricks are stupid pet tricks, be it Letterman or Youtube. Were Langan to have an openness to the development in critiques and awareness in recent times, he would be able to update and correct the flaws in his theories. Anyway, those were my thoughts on associating individualism with blindness to larger ideological critique.
As a way of trying to understand the ways that a binary system can evolve into a multi-branched exploration of sophistication and complexity, I decided to try producing a manifestation of my understanding of how the situation strings together. I’m pretty sure my metaphors and examination here don’t do any of the topics justice, but it’s a lens that I’m choosing to use here, and one that I think provides possibly useful insight (assuming I didn’t accidentally grossly misrepresent something, heh).
One of the features available in some programs and coding languages is the “If-Then” function. The “If-Then” function is what would be a dichotomous situation- comprehension is either totally perfect or totally nonexistent. However, any system that has “If-Then” functions will also typically have “If-Then-Else” functionality (…somewhat obviously enough, I suppose). This is the important part, the part that McCormick treats as alien- expanding solutions to a variety of answers. “If-Then-Else” functions can easily be strung together to produce exactly the kind of critical heuristics that McCormick seems to be seeking. “If-Then-Else” functions can be more or less precisely tuned, depending on the source materials they are set to work with. For example, say I wanted to analyze the color of this text. As an “If-Then” function, I would say “Is this text black? If it is, tell me!” As an “If-Then-Else” function, that concept can be expanded to “Is this text black? If it is, tell me. If it isn’t, tell me that it’s not black.” This, of course, is not particularly more useful to a human observer, who would be able to intuitively discern from the lack of reply in the first situation that the color was indeed “not black”. This process can be extended in a different direction however, stacking, as seen in something like this: “Is this text black? If it is, Then tell me that it’s black. Or else, if it’s not black, If it is red, then tell me that it’s red. Or else, if it’s not red…” continuing ad infinitum to whatever level of precision you wanted to look for.
Here, McCormick does seem to address something of a problem in the “If-Then-Else” functionality system, which is that it is only as useful as the database that is being used to parse the commands. If the system is lacking a type of proper referential awareness of what makes black “black” or “not black”, the process will fail no matter the level of specificity of detail, as the “If-Then-Else” functions would either being to loop in on themselves, or just end up hanging on a dead end, when all known referential executions are exhausted. At this point, the only possible option is to allow for a total reorientation of framework. One potential option is to simply add the parameter for what the color “black” are, if you know them and are confident in your ability to transmit the details clearly. Another potential option is to create a function that completely discards the original patterns. For example, continuing the bolded “If-Then-Else” function above would eventually result in going through every single color that is known. If no color comes up, it is possible then to amend, after the final color has been addressed, “…If it is [final color], Then tell me that it’s [final color]. Or Else, If it’s not [final color], Then, If it is a color, Then tell me that it is a color. Or Else, If it is not a color, Then tell me that it is not a color. If it is not a color, Then tell me if it is a [whatever category you’ve set to question about next],etc…”
In these strings, the greater the level of specificity, the greater the level of depth of the function’s search. Likewise, the looser the specificity of a string, the greater the level of depth of a function’s search. In either case, a well-designed string is likely to have overlap/reuse of terminology and functions, reducing the overall memory load of the process.
It’s a shame, then, that McCormick’s example of this flaw/problem is demonstrated by, from all accounts that I’ve heard, a misstatement of fact. Galileo was never ostracized for his theory of gravity. Galileo’s problems with the Catholic church were almost certainly related to the rhetorical stylings under which Galileo presented his theories on astronomy. Rather than simply explain the theories and concepts that he had researched, Galileo chose to present his evidence in the format of a socratic dialogue, functionally acting out a conversation between himself and an continually incorrect buffoon named “Simplicio”, the Italian term for a simpleton. This wouldn’t have been a problem, had Galileo not made Simplicio quote wide chunks of the Pope’s own statements. Some people would contend that the validity of a claim should override the way in which it was presented, at least in terms of concession of truth. For those who believe this, I encourage you to send a similar style of paper, as accurate and factual as you can make it, about your boss, teacher, or some other authority figure who can have an impact on your life. I certainly wouldn’t be expecting a positive response, regardless of how hard you tried.
What’s particularly funny about this disparity in the actual series of events is that the truth of the situation is equally rich for cultural examination, if not even more so. Every student who hears that story can likely relate to an understanding of that situation- most people have offended an authority figure with their “true” statements, paying an “unfair” cost as a result, and those who haven’t offended are typically fully aware that they are not supposed to directly and/or publicly insult their superiors. Of course, there’s probably just as much depth in examining the actions and motivations behind using bureaucratic functions as a mechanism of executing personal grudges, as the Pope and Catholic Church did with their heresy charges in order to unfairly punish Galileo’s insulting caricature.
Harkin and Sosnoski take exception to Gerald Prince, a “Structuralist”’s idea that “readers make meaning by processing instructions that are embedded in a text.” Their conjecture is that the ability to interpret an idea through a lens creates a skill that a structuralist framework is incapable of incorporating. I would argue, however, that such a structuralist concept can still work exceptionally well in expressing the concepts they’re demonstrating. Again, I would like to return to my example of the “If-Then-Else” color analyzing function stack. Indeed, everything that I discussed there can be mapped onto an idea of “making meaning by processing instructions that are embedded in a text”. To elaborate- as I mentioned as one of the key points of the code, it is possible to vary the output of the code by altering the parameters that work as a frame of reference. As demonstrative, but not necessarily inherently mutually exclusive roles, let us look at a highly religious Christian individual and an individual who has a strong faith in modern medicine. In this case, let us say that both of folks will be presented with an identical piece of text: “Every First-Born Child in San Francisco found dead.” In both these cases, the readers made meaning by processing instructions that are embedded in a text. They both used similar functions to process patterns, but already stored data influences how the instructions are read by these theoretical characters.
The Christian individual’s parsing, primed with their religious leanings, leads to something akin to “If every First-Born Child in San Francisco is found dead, Then does it have something to do with God? If it has to do with God, Then what does it have to do with God? Or Else, if it doesn’t have to do with God, Then what does it have to do with? Etc…”
Meanwhile, the character with the love of modern medicine would be more likely to posit a reflection along the lines of “If every First-Born Child in San Francisco is found dead, Then does it have something to do with bacteria? If it has to do with bacteria, Then should I be concerned about it? Or Else, if it doesn’t have to do with bacteria, what does it have to do with? Etc..”
With enough instruction, parameters, and limitations, it would theoretically be possible to force each individual to output identical (or functionally identical) results. However, on a pragmatic scale, such a course of action would be rather inadvisable and impractical. It makes more sense to keep the processors individualized, in order to establish a "best-fit" system for inputting instructions.
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