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- Before we continue with the subject of computers, I would
like to look at the cyclic movement of social ideology that has
often repeated itself. In talking about computers, the reason
that the true character of the computer fails to appear at all
no matter how closely we examine the technological aspects is
in fact related to shortcomings in the history of thought.
Whether it be ancient myth, religion, modern science, each is
a language system that explains what the world is. Within the
universal worldview that each professes, these systems save human
beings from the fundamental fear that a world full of meaning
will fall into chaos. The era during which people lived in peace
as part of an "grand worldview" that was relatively
stable has passed, and in modern times, a variety of universalities
have blossomed and the curtain opened on a period of rivalries
between them. Scholarship has become increasingly specialized
in individual fields, each exclusive of the others, and translation
between them has become impossible. In each system, a ruling
theory is victorious and explains the world. It doesn't take
long for cracks, or contradictions, to appear in the system,
leading to another theory that attempts to find a solution to
the contradictions on a higher metalevel. This cycle then continues.
It goes without saying that mathematics and physics are the
most refined examples of this process.
These two language systems occupy a metalevel in the various
fields of learning that make up science and created the framework
that have bound the rivalries of universal myths since the modern
era.
At the beginning of this century, this framework, the ultimate
matrix of Western logos, was finally subject to a thorough investigation.
Physics attempted to compose a theory of particle physics that
would find the ultimate particle that composes the world. Symbolic
logic attempted to clearly document and control the ultimate
"logic" that as a whole must obey the overall work
of intelligence known as the "logical"--the very thing
that forms the fundaments of mathematics. This became a journey
to an even higher metalevel. Transferring the focus to a metalevel
ensured a transparent system, and as the system became dangerously
muddled, the focus was retrained on another metalevel. The power
that supports this dynamism is none other than the desire to
explain totally the whole of Creation with an ultimate principle
and to recognize it completely; that is, the desire to be unified
with the gaze of God.
- For all of its magnificent intentions, and simultaneous profundity
and plainness, symbolic logic never matured to the point that
anyone outside of the field of philosophy could easily approach
it. It never had the power as a form of thought to attract the
attention of the times. As an added insult, the fact that "there
is no such thing as a system without contradictions" in
the world of mathematics didn't improve the situation, and reduced
symbolic logic, which appears to simply be a kind of game played
with symbols (signs) that are incomprehensible to common people,
to a kind of mystical discipline. Despite this, the most profound
part shortly thereafter escaped the control of philosophers and
proceeded down the path toward practical use.
In 1936 Alan TURING invented a mathematical model for a possible
ideal machine that could be operated with all types of signs.
Approximately ten years later, John von NEUMANN gave shape to
Turing's model by creating an actual machine using vacuum tubes.
Since that time, the computer has developed until the present
without any substantial alterations or revisions. The mechanical
parts that dealt with logical circuitry changed from vacuum tubes
to silicon chips, and despite the fact that performance speed
has approached that of light, the essence of the computer has
never superseded the Turing Machine. The reason for this is
that due to a finite number of rules, no more than one discrete
sign can be changed at a time.
The Turing Machine is a conception of a machine that activates
operating rules by reading marks that are printed on an unrestricted
length of paper tape and making new marks to move the tape to
a variety of optional positions. The machine is that simple,
but in theory it has the ability to perform any kind of logical
operation. It wasn't, however, Turing's goal to create a convenient,
practical calculator. His intention was to mathematically demonstrate
that there are mathematical propositions that are impossible
to prove; in other words, there are problems to which no answer
would be found even if the tape spun around forever and there
are rules that can't be figured into the Turing Machine. What
this process indicates, however, is that at the core of logic
based on logical thought, including mathematics, is actually
nothing more than an extremely simple sign operation. These
processes are purely formal; in other words, mechanical. Even
in Turing's case there was already an expansive maze of symbolic
logic, but the heart and finite nature of Western logos, which
had taken over 1,000 years to mature, had in this way been abbreviated
to a mechanical operation of simple signs. Neumann, then, took
the next decisive step by giving concrete form to this blueprint.
Therefore, despite its original objective as a way of calculating
the firing distance of artillery shells, the computer is not
a machine that was designed for mathematical calculation. In
computers, fundamental arithmetical calculations such as addition
are carried out using logical circuits such as AND, OR, and NOT.
This is the true essence of a logical machine. The profound
philosophical question that symbolic logic, which positioned
logic on the foundations of mathematics, set out to become was
given concrete shape by the development of a machine, guided
neither by mathematicians nor philosophers, and handed over to
a group of people called technicians.
- The embodiment of logic in that substance called the electric
circuit may in one sense have been a kind of business transaction
concerning truth between the gods and humans. Unconsciously,
mathematicians and physicists came to believe that the signs
of God that were stamped upon the world like a book should be
deciphered, and that if there was a decipherable code, it could
be documented in an extremely simple form. In this faith, simplicity
was beautiful and mystical, and it guaranteed perfection and
universality. This decipherable code should be able to be grasped
through the amassing of precise logical steps and the intuition
of divine revelation as realized in the thoughts of a selected
genius (shaman).
But the computer dragged down the entire work of intelligence
to a concrete and level ground. For example, because the computer
can only deal with binary numbers, irrational numbers such as
√2 must be changed to real numbers. No matter how many digits
are placed to the right of the decimal point, an error will necessarily
follow. Neither can the computer handle the concept of the infinite.
After a perfect triangle as it resides in the world of ideas
in the heavens falls to earth we must be content with a distorted
version of the triangle fraught with error. The perfect, transparent
space that is structured on even ground for mathematicians and
theorists to contemplate becomes a physical space that includes
the finite and error in the computer.
So why are computers used? Computers can carry out at high speed
enormous steps that would take longer than a human life to calculate.
Intuition, like a revelation guided by truth, overwhelms the
concrete performance of serial astronomical operations of complicated
differential equations. In exchange for overlooking the perfection
of god, human beings got their hands on an approximation of godly
time and speed that they could never hope to live themselves.
Mathematicians and physicists began to use the computer as a
tool to solve a particular traditional problem. However, what
actual occurred was a crucial change in which the computer established
the problems it should have handled as part of fundamental learning,
determined a kind of approach and a finite world to go with it,
and decided a format for the solutions. After experiencing the
self-destruction of the system, mathematics developed algorithms
to reduce errors and increase the effectiveness of the calculation
process, and refocused its research objectives. Mathematics
began putting its energy into achieving perfection. But with
the realization that this would never be possible, it resorted
to working for an imperfect machine. After experiencing the self-destruction
of the system in the process of investigating its own perfection,
mathematics could find no field of spirited research other than
developing algorithms to reduce errors and increase the effectiveness
of the calculation process for an imperfect machine.
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- The same situation that occurred in mathematics and physics
soon created ripples in other fields. An overall rearrangement
of knowledge soon got underway. The profusion of the universal
has again begun to move from a new uniform focus to unification.
Soon the hierarchy of learning, which was modeled on the practical
activities of physics with mathematics as the fundamental language,
will fall into ruins. The concept of information and the cybernetic
general theory of communication have encouraged common language
and methods not only in natural science, but in a variety of
fields, and theories of the past have been converted into this
new language. Mathematics, physics, biology, economics, sociology,
political science among other activities involving intelligence
(with a multidirectional focus on and explanation of the world)
linked to each other with a translatable language. This is the
rewriting of the universal myth.
However, what is actually happening is merely that all knowledge
is being changed into signs that go by the name of information
and are loaded into machines. It is still only "merely."
As we have seen, the computer merely exchanges one discrete sign
with another at the same time due to a finite number of rules.
Despite this, within the word "merely," an epistemological
event of great significance to civilization is concealed in the
act of instantly changing one language system into another.
Is this the new metamyth? What exactly does the concept of information
explain, provide, prevent?
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