Re: [microsound] Re: Digital Culture/Digital Technology

[Andrea Piran <adern@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 17 Feb 2004 08:04:28 +0000 (UTC), a Bad Day on the Midway, Phil
Thomson wrote:
> Adern said:
> > I think the machine is tecnical, people who use it makes the machine
> > social.
> I actually agree to some extent. I think there is more of a
> dialectical or dialogical relationship between the technology and its
> social context. But I don't agree that "the machine is technical,
> people who use it makes the machine social," because I think Deleuze's
> (and Gere's) point is that there is always already a social context
> that determines particular aspects of how technology is
> developed. Like how the computer might not have developed in the same
> way had it not been for the context of militarism and capitalism. Gere
> gets more into this later on in the book, though I'm only on the first
> chapter at this point.

It would be nice if you post something after you have read the other
chapter of the book so this aspect would be clearer.

> > Everyone use the technology usable for him, technical elements are
> > chosen by the manifacturer of technology. The social machine (i
> > suppose the term is referring to the users) can have a sort of
> > preference but non a direction capability.  Users try to use the
> > machine rather than use it.
> 
> But "social" doesn't just refer to the users who interact with the
> technology once it's already been produced; this seems to me to ignore
> the fact that technology is always produced within an environment
> which is not value-free by default.

The environment has a value, nothing is created in a ivory tower, but i
think the author of sentence overvalue it.

> If you mean that technology only acquires a social meaning once it
> actually comes into the world, then that leaves unanswered the
> question of how, leaving aside purely technical considerations, the
> technology assumed that form to begin with. For example, why is the
> computer based on a binary system, if not for the fact that Western
> rational thinking has for centuries tended to be binaristic in
> character (e.g., Aristotle's Law of the Excluded Middle)? 

It's the most rational answer because binary logic is a sort of
"cultural heritage". More complex logics (i.e.: fuzzy logic) are a
recent innovation in logical studies but they have been conceived by the
consideration that binary reasoning is not the human reasoning ATS we
don't reason only with "true" and "false" but also with everything lies
between.

> It may be possible to conceive of a computer that operates, for
> example, on a ternary system (three terms instead of two), so the
> question is, aside from purely technical considerations (if there is
> such a thing), why the binary basis for digital technology?

There are technical considerations but they are not the topic. I suppose
binary logic has a tradition because is a real simple way of reason,
when you disregard the "uncertain" or the "unknown" it's easy to operate
on what's left.

> > This is the application of computer programming concepts applied to
> > human language, from this sentence it seems human language is
> > "digital" and influence the machine while i think the opposite is
> > true.
> 
> Yes, I can see that you think the opposite is true. But to scupper the
> binaristic terms of our debate for a moment, what if both assertions
> are true in some measure?


There's a need of a third concept, a sort of meta-language lying between
human and digital. If we assume human languange influence the machine
and viceversa are true, this implies there's something in the middle
acting like a gravitational center.

bye
-- 
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