Re: deprogramming language
Matt Kozusko (mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu)
Tue, 26 Oct 1999 10:46:54 -0500
Steven Gabriel wrote:
> parrallel lines never meet or meet at an infinite number of points. [...]
The law I'm imagining would be something more like the
> A single difference is at the root of
> computation you say. Well, no not really. It is indeed a property of
> binary digits that 1 does not equal 0. That's really the same as saying 5
> is not equal to 7. The 1's and 0's are just numbers, in base two.
[cut]
> Let's say then that we have all these numbers and that they are all
> distinct, differentiated and named. But they're not interesting. They
> might as well be books, or dogs, or love. Well, except they can't be
> because they don't bark, they don't hold stories and they aren't a
> fitting subject for a sonnet. What makes them interesting is other
> properties that they have.
Yes--the other properties they have makes them interesting. My point
is that in order to *have* other properties, they need to have a first
property. It's like trying to reduce something to its fundamental
essence. Subatomic particles (?) are not terribly interesting to
people who study, say, the way starfish regenerate lost limbs. But at
many removes from the way those lost limbs are re-grown are the ways
the little bits and pieces of atoms work. You don't have to
understand them--you don't even have to recognize them--but they have
to be in place. You can write perl scripts from dawn till dawn, if
you like, never thinking for a second about 1's and 0's, but they're
at the bottom of the pile. Without that fundamental property of 1's
and 0's, computer languages would not work the way they do. The
numbers "5" and "8" permit a splendid range of complicated equations
that are infinitely more complex than presence vs. absence, but you
can't get the numbers to begin with if you don't invoke the principal
of presence vs. absence.
One thing I remember from Goedel is the idea that for any given rule
about numbers, one has to use take for granted another rule about
numbers that really can't be "proven" inside of numbers. I am
probably bastardizing a little here, but this is the idea behind a lot
of poststructural thinking: in order to discuss the validity of
language--how it works and so on--you're stuck in the awkward position
of having to use it as if it were already valid. This is a
fundamental problem, beyond which there is nothing simpler. It is
impossible to argue that it is not true, and it is technically equally
impossible to argue that it is true. This is by way of suggesting
that everything we "know" takes on the characteristics of the way we
can know things. Language structures knowledge, and though I
sometimes get lulled into a fascinating, ostebsilby extra-linguistic
space when the more mathematically inclined around me start talking
about math theory, I'm always able in the end to catch a sparkle of
difference at the bottom of it all.
--
Matt Kozusko mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu