Research and scholarship on communication began as a cumulative tradition in the United States in the late 1880s when five people came together in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Two were young faculty - John Dewey and George Herbert Mead - and two were students at the time - Robert Park and Charles Cooley. The final element of the pentad was an itinerant American journalist by the name of Franklin Ford, who shared with Dewey - indeed, cultivated in him - the belief that "a proper daily newspaper would be the only possible social science."
Like most intellectuals of the period, this group was under the spell of Herbert Spencer's organic conception of society, though not enthralled by social Darwinism. the relationship between communication and transportation that organicism suggested - the nerves and arteries of society - had been realized in the parallel growth of the telegraph and railroad: a throughly encephalated social nervous system with the control mechanism of communication divorced from the physician movement of people and things.
Communication as Culture by J. Carey. (p. 143).
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Monday, February 25, 2008
Carey about Innis
Innis spent much of his time trying to explain how Greek culture had been destroyed by writing and its effects on their oral tradition. Innis also spent much of his life trying to draw attention to the psychic and social consequences of technologies. It did not occur to him that our philosophy systematically excludes techne from its mediations. Only natural and living forms are classified as hylo-morphic (McLuhan, 1971, p. 429) (p. 52).
Numbers were once words among words; it was enough to merely listen to them:
Eenie meenie minee mo, catch a tiger by the toe.
In consonantal writing systems such as Old Hebrew that have neither numerals nor vowels, this screams to high heaven.
In other words, mathematics only exists in cultures in which numbers are present as numerals.
It is the transformation of numbers into numerals, this culturally highly advanced magic wand, which separates signifieds (a matter of reading and writing) from signifiers (a matter of hearing) (p. 53).
For ever since Thomas’s great idol Aristotle, that particular matter which all but evades our senses yet facilitates sensual perception in the first place is called to metaxi (‘the middle’, Latin medium). Aristotle, in other words, shaped the concept of media; yet he did not do so with his syllogisms in mind but rather in order to support the physico-physiological assumption that (regardless of what ancient doctrines of atomism may say) eyes are not able to see anything without media (p. 54).
According to modern physics, however, wavelengths and/or photons are able to reach us even when traveling through a vacuum. So what, then, have media to do with mathematics? Everything or nothing. First, modern physics no longer narrates; thanks to interposed computers, it translates countable subatomic events into systems of equations. Second, it was the obvious goal of Aristotle’s doctrine of the revealed eidos to refute an older type of essence which – in those days of the ‘gigantomachia’ about being (Plato, 1993: 246a) – was tantamount to getting rid of it altogether.
Numbers were once words among words; it was enough to merely listen to them:
Eenie meenie minee mo, catch a tiger by the toe.
In consonantal writing systems such as Old Hebrew that have neither numerals nor vowels, this screams to high heaven.
In other words, mathematics only exists in cultures in which numbers are present as numerals.
It is the transformation of numbers into numerals, this culturally highly advanced magic wand, which separates signifieds (a matter of reading and writing) from signifiers (a matter of hearing) (p. 53).
For ever since Thomas’s great idol Aristotle, that particular matter which all but evades our senses yet facilitates sensual perception in the first place is called to metaxi (‘the middle’, Latin medium). Aristotle, in other words, shaped the concept of media; yet he did not do so with his syllogisms in mind but rather in order to support the physico-physiological assumption that (regardless of what ancient doctrines of atomism may say) eyes are not able to see anything without media (p. 54).
According to modern physics, however, wavelengths and/or photons are able to reach us even when traveling through a vacuum. So what, then, have media to do with mathematics? Everything or nothing. First, modern physics no longer narrates; thanks to interposed computers, it translates countable subatomic events into systems of equations. Second, it was the obvious goal of Aristotle’s doctrine of the revealed eidos to refute an older type of essence which – in those days of the ‘gigantomachia’ about being (Plato, 1993: 246a) – was tantamount to getting rid of it altogether.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
실천이성비판-이마누엘 칸트
선행은 이타(利他)나 대의(大義) 혹은 공존공영을 ‘위해서’ 하는 행위라기보다는 어떤 행위를 그렇게 하는 것이 ‘옳기 때문’이라는 오직 그 이유 때문에 하는 행위이다.윤리 도덕은 우리 모두에게 혹은 다수의 사람들에게 이익이 되기 때문에 가치가 있는 것이 아니라, 그 자체가 가치 있는 것이다.
많은 경우에 이로움이나 유용함은 한갓 감성적인 욕구 충족에 대응하는 것이다.감성적 욕구 충족에 상응하는 명령은, 모든 경험으로부터의 교훈이 그러하듯이, 능란한 처세의 요령은 될지 모르나 보편적 도덕 법칙이 되지는 못한다.
도덕은 처세의 기술이 아니라 인격의 표현이다. 선은 감성적 욕구를 충족시켜 주기 때문에 좋은 것이 아니라, 그 자체가 좋은 것이다.
이 ‘선’의 관념으로부터 비로소 ‘좋음’ ‘가치’ 등의 개념이 유래한다. 그렇기 때문에 도덕 법칙은 정언적, 즉 단정적 명령으로 이성적 존재자에게 다가온다. 가언적인 즉, 어떤 전제 하에서 말해지는 명령은 필연성이 없다. 명령을 받은 자가 그 전제를 받아들이지 않으면 그 명령은 명령으로서 효력이 없기 때문이다. “언젠가 이웃에 도움을 청하게 될 때를 생각해서 항상 이웃에 친절하라” 따위의 가언적 처세훈들은 도덕적 선의 표현이 될 수 없다. 선은 인격적 주체의 가치이고 그렇기 때문에 그 자체가 목적이지 무엇을 위한 수단이 아니다. 또한 사람으로서 사람은 인격적 주체이고, 주체란 문자 그대로 무엇을 위한 수단으로 취급될 수 없는 그 자체가 목적인 것이다. 인격적 행위만이 도덕적 즉 당위적이므로 그것은 인간이 도달해야만 할 이성의 필연적 요구이다. 어떤 사람이 행위를 할 때 ‘마음 내키는 바대로 따라도 법도에 어긋나지 않는다’면 그를 우리는 성인(聖人)이라 부를 것이다. 마찬가지로 실천적인 행위의지가 (정언적인) 도덕법칙과 완전하게 일치함은 신성성(神聖性)이라고 일컬어야 할 것이다.
감성세계에 살고 있는 인간이 이런 신성성에 ‘현실적으로’ 도달한다고 볼 수는 없겠지만, 그렇다 하더라도 아니 바로 그러하기 때문에 그런 ‘완전한 일치를 향한 무한한 전진’ 가운데에서 우리는 인격성을 본다.
이 같은 가르침을 담은 ‘실천이성비판’(1788)은 ‘순수이성비판’(1781), ‘판단력비판’(1790)과 더불어 이마누엘 칸트(1724〜1804)의 이른바 3대 비판서 가운데 하나다. 이 ‘실천이성비판’은 또한 3부작으로 볼 수 있는 칸트의 도덕철학 3대서 가운데 하나이기도 하다. 이 책은 출판 순서에서나 내용 면에서 그 중간적 위치를 차지한다.
‘윤리형이상학 정초’(1785)가 칸트 도덕철학의 포괄적 서설이라면 ‘실천이성비판’은 그 체계의 골간이고 ‘윤리형이상학’(1797)은 이에서 구축된 원리로부터 실천 세칙을 연역해 놓은, 이를테면 응용 윤리학이다.
백종현 서울대 교수・철학과 / [서울대 권장도서 100권] - 동아일보
선행은 이타(利他)나 대의(大義) 혹은 공존공영을 ‘위해서’ 하는 행위라기보다는 어떤 행위를 그렇게 하는 것이 ‘옳기 때문’이라는 오직 그 이유 때문에 하는 행위이다.윤리 도덕은 우리 모두에게 혹은 다수의 사람들에게 이익이 되기 때문에 가치가 있는 것이 아니라, 그 자체가 가치 있는 것이다.
많은 경우에 이로움이나 유용함은 한갓 감성적인 욕구 충족에 대응하는 것이다.감성적 욕구 충족에 상응하는 명령은, 모든 경험으로부터의 교훈이 그러하듯이, 능란한 처세의 요령은 될지 모르나 보편적 도덕 법칙이 되지는 못한다.
도덕은 처세의 기술이 아니라 인격의 표현이다. 선은 감성적 욕구를 충족시켜 주기 때문에 좋은 것이 아니라, 그 자체가 좋은 것이다.
이 ‘선’의 관념으로부터 비로소 ‘좋음’ ‘가치’ 등의 개념이 유래한다. 그렇기 때문에 도덕 법칙은 정언적, 즉 단정적 명령으로 이성적 존재자에게 다가온다. 가언적인 즉, 어떤 전제 하에서 말해지는 명령은 필연성이 없다. 명령을 받은 자가 그 전제를 받아들이지 않으면 그 명령은 명령으로서 효력이 없기 때문이다. “언젠가 이웃에 도움을 청하게 될 때를 생각해서 항상 이웃에 친절하라” 따위의 가언적 처세훈들은 도덕적 선의 표현이 될 수 없다. 선은 인격적 주체의 가치이고 그렇기 때문에 그 자체가 목적이지 무엇을 위한 수단이 아니다. 또한 사람으로서 사람은 인격적 주체이고, 주체란 문자 그대로 무엇을 위한 수단으로 취급될 수 없는 그 자체가 목적인 것이다. 인격적 행위만이 도덕적 즉 당위적이므로 그것은 인간이 도달해야만 할 이성의 필연적 요구이다. 어떤 사람이 행위를 할 때 ‘마음 내키는 바대로 따라도 법도에 어긋나지 않는다’면 그를 우리는 성인(聖人)이라 부를 것이다. 마찬가지로 실천적인 행위의지가 (정언적인) 도덕법칙과 완전하게 일치함은 신성성(神聖性)이라고 일컬어야 할 것이다.
감성세계에 살고 있는 인간이 이런 신성성에 ‘현실적으로’ 도달한다고 볼 수는 없겠지만, 그렇다 하더라도 아니 바로 그러하기 때문에 그런 ‘완전한 일치를 향한 무한한 전진’ 가운데에서 우리는 인격성을 본다.
이 같은 가르침을 담은 ‘실천이성비판’(1788)은 ‘순수이성비판’(1781), ‘판단력비판’(1790)과 더불어 이마누엘 칸트(1724〜1804)의 이른바 3대 비판서 가운데 하나다. 이 ‘실천이성비판’은 또한 3부작으로 볼 수 있는 칸트의 도덕철학 3대서 가운데 하나이기도 하다. 이 책은 출판 순서에서나 내용 면에서 그 중간적 위치를 차지한다.
‘윤리형이상학 정초’(1785)가 칸트 도덕철학의 포괄적 서설이라면 ‘실천이성비판’은 그 체계의 골간이고 ‘윤리형이상학’(1797)은 이에서 구축된 원리로부터 실천 세칙을 연역해 놓은, 이를테면 응용 윤리학이다.
백종현 서울대 교수・철학과 / [서울대 권장도서 100권] - 동아일보
Thinking Colours and/or Machines
Quotes from "Thinking Colours and/or Machines" - Friedrich Kittler
Conceptualizing the most complex technological medium as a tool, however, is so common and comforting that the humanities are free to continue their business as usual. Given that tools are always defined from the point of view of their user, there is no need to question the old approach that defines machines from the point of view of humans; and subsequently there is no need to consider the possibility that, conversely, humans are defined by machines. (p. 40)
In order to cut a long story short, I will tell it as a fairy tale. Like all fairy tales, it begins with a state of perfection. Once there was a time when hard sciences such as physics and astronomy found their unquestioned academic place within the faculty of philosophy; and the fact that this faculty was ranked far below the other three may explain why there were no squabbles about possible differences between spirit and nature or man and machine. (pp. 40-41)
At the very moment that philosophy set out to interpret or conceive of all cultural data, psychophysics, as it was named by its founder Gustav Theodor Fechner, began to decipher the same cultural data as scientific data. (p. 41)
With regard to the history of science, the crucial point was that philosophy could no longer claim to be compatible with psychophysical laboratory findings or technological media. As far as I can tell, Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology was the first attempt to successfully circumvent this new problem. Philosophy could no longer afford to flatly deny, as Hegel’s freestyle had done, the correctness of mathematical and psychophysical descriptions, but since acknowledging them would have condemned all thought to pure redundancy, Husserl invented his so-called life-world as a philosophically autonomous realm. (p. 42)
Heidegger even went so far as to sacrifice the basic self-definition of philosophy that had been in place since the days of Parmenides, its perennially victorious campaign against the blindness of everyday life and non-philosophers, by replacing the old alliance with the sciences with a new union involving thinkers and craftsmen, masters of the pen and masters of the hammer. (p. 43)
This shift from perception to action, from the sensory to the motoric, was explicitly designed to launch a counterattack against the psychophysical explanations of sensations and perceptions. Just like Husserl, Heidegger could no longer deny the hard facts that the experiments on humans had brought to light, but he reduced those facts to variables of life-world experiences. (p. 43)
And there once was a time when Hegel, protected by Goethe’s formidable firepower, was allowed to heap philosophical scorn on the very idea of colour frequencies. In the time of hermeneutics, however, it is a matter of simultaneously accepting and banishing the facts provided or (in the strict mathematical sense of the word) distributed by measuring weights and colours. Heidegger can move on to his late work and reflect upon ‘language as language’ simply because he excluded the body of real
numbers. (pp. 45-46)
One hundred and twenty-eight letters are enough for America, 265 for the European polyglossia. But, as Winograd has shown so clearly, this is precisely why all the attempts by AI researchers to extend the automatization of natural languages beyond the finite numbers of letters and phonemes to the virtually infinite numbers of their semantics are doomed to failure. Obviously, the installation of personal computers on the desks of humanists – when questioned, almost all my colleagues swear that they use them ‘only as an improved typewriter’ – has not healed the breach between nature and culture; and presumably even the fact that they have found their way into the methods and databases of the humanities won’t change anything. (p. 47)
What is certain, however, is that this explosion of computer interfaces and their dimensions will lead to the implosion of all other entertainment media, and not only them, in the supermedium of the computer. The effects of this explosion, however, are not restricted to the technological and commercial spheres. Because cultures, the business of the Humanities, do not depend on individual intentions but on all the media that become possible on the basis of natural languages, their limits do not become visible until viewed in the alphanumerical light of modern machines. (p. 49)
Those who have tried to pour the fuzzy logic of their insights and intentions into computer source code know from bitter experience how drastically the formal language of these codes distorts those insights and intentions. And because these feedback loops tend to lead from the machine to the programmer rather than the other way round, computers cannot be classified as tools, which is why the later Heidegger is more relevant when it comes to understanding universal machines than the Heidegger of Being and Time. (p. 49)
Heidegger, as if he had just invented the closed circuit, concludes that ‘unlocking, transforming, storing, distributing, and switching are ways of revealing’ (1993: 322). What Wiener called Shannon’s madness must have been precisely this discovery. (p. 49)
Conceptualizing the most complex technological medium as a tool, however, is so common and comforting that the humanities are free to continue their business as usual. Given that tools are always defined from the point of view of their user, there is no need to question the old approach that defines machines from the point of view of humans; and subsequently there is no need to consider the possibility that, conversely, humans are defined by machines. (p. 40)
In order to cut a long story short, I will tell it as a fairy tale. Like all fairy tales, it begins with a state of perfection. Once there was a time when hard sciences such as physics and astronomy found their unquestioned academic place within the faculty of philosophy; and the fact that this faculty was ranked far below the other three may explain why there were no squabbles about possible differences between spirit and nature or man and machine. (pp. 40-41)
At the very moment that philosophy set out to interpret or conceive of all cultural data, psychophysics, as it was named by its founder Gustav Theodor Fechner, began to decipher the same cultural data as scientific data. (p. 41)
With regard to the history of science, the crucial point was that philosophy could no longer claim to be compatible with psychophysical laboratory findings or technological media. As far as I can tell, Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology was the first attempt to successfully circumvent this new problem. Philosophy could no longer afford to flatly deny, as Hegel’s freestyle had done, the correctness of mathematical and psychophysical descriptions, but since acknowledging them would have condemned all thought to pure redundancy, Husserl invented his so-called life-world as a philosophically autonomous realm. (p. 42)
Heidegger even went so far as to sacrifice the basic self-definition of philosophy that had been in place since the days of Parmenides, its perennially victorious campaign against the blindness of everyday life and non-philosophers, by replacing the old alliance with the sciences with a new union involving thinkers and craftsmen, masters of the pen and masters of the hammer. (p. 43)
This shift from perception to action, from the sensory to the motoric, was explicitly designed to launch a counterattack against the psychophysical explanations of sensations and perceptions. Just like Husserl, Heidegger could no longer deny the hard facts that the experiments on humans had brought to light, but he reduced those facts to variables of life-world experiences. (p. 43)
And there once was a time when Hegel, protected by Goethe’s formidable firepower, was allowed to heap philosophical scorn on the very idea of colour frequencies. In the time of hermeneutics, however, it is a matter of simultaneously accepting and banishing the facts provided or (in the strict mathematical sense of the word) distributed by measuring weights and colours. Heidegger can move on to his late work and reflect upon ‘language as language’ simply because he excluded the body of real
numbers. (pp. 45-46)
One hundred and twenty-eight letters are enough for America, 265 for the European polyglossia. But, as Winograd has shown so clearly, this is precisely why all the attempts by AI researchers to extend the automatization of natural languages beyond the finite numbers of letters and phonemes to the virtually infinite numbers of their semantics are doomed to failure. Obviously, the installation of personal computers on the desks of humanists – when questioned, almost all my colleagues swear that they use them ‘only as an improved typewriter’ – has not healed the breach between nature and culture; and presumably even the fact that they have found their way into the methods and databases of the humanities won’t change anything. (p. 47)
What is certain, however, is that this explosion of computer interfaces and their dimensions will lead to the implosion of all other entertainment media, and not only them, in the supermedium of the computer. The effects of this explosion, however, are not restricted to the technological and commercial spheres. Because cultures, the business of the Humanities, do not depend on individual intentions but on all the media that become possible on the basis of natural languages, their limits do not become visible until viewed in the alphanumerical light of modern machines. (p. 49)
Those who have tried to pour the fuzzy logic of their insights and intentions into computer source code know from bitter experience how drastically the formal language of these codes distorts those insights and intentions. And because these feedback loops tend to lead from the machine to the programmer rather than the other way round, computers cannot be classified as tools, which is why the later Heidegger is more relevant when it comes to understanding universal machines than the Heidegger of Being and Time. (p. 49)
Heidegger, as if he had just invented the closed circuit, concludes that ‘unlocking, transforming, storing, distributing, and switching are ways of revealing’ (1993: 322). What Wiener called Shannon’s madness must have been precisely this discovery. (p. 49)
The Simulation of Surveillance
Quotes from "The Simulation of Surveillance" - William Bogard, 1996.
Telematic socieieties are societies that aim to solve the problem of perceptual control at a distance through technologies for cutting the time of transmission of information to zero (Bogard, 1996, p. 9).
The "hyperreal" (i.e., the "code," the technologies of signalization) for Baudrillard is what precedes the real (the imaginary apparus that signals or "effects" the real". Simulation, in turn, for Baudrillard becomes the "reigning scheme" of the postindustrial or information age. roughly defined by the concept "telematic society," a scheme whos e paradigmatic mode of domination and control is the code (Bodard, 1996, p. 11)
To dissimulate is to feign not to have what one has. To simulate is to feign what one hasn't. One implies a presence, the other an absence. But the matter is more complicated, since to simulate is not simply to feign: "Someone who feigns an illness can simply go to bed and make believe he is ill. Someone (sic) who simulates an illness produces in himself some of the symptoms." Thus, feigning or dissimulating leaves the reality principle intact: the difference is always clear, it is only masked; whereas simulation threatens the difference between "true" and "false," between "real" and "imaginary" (Baudrillard, 1983, p. 5).
Telematic socieieties are societies that aim to solve the problem of perceptual control at a distance through technologies for cutting the time of transmission of information to zero (Bogard, 1996, p. 9).
The "hyperreal" (i.e., the "code," the technologies of signalization) for Baudrillard is what precedes the real (the imaginary apparus that signals or "effects" the real". Simulation, in turn, for Baudrillard becomes the "reigning scheme" of the postindustrial or information age. roughly defined by the concept "telematic society," a scheme whos e paradigmatic mode of domination and control is the code (Bodard, 1996, p. 11)
To dissimulate is to feign not to have what one has. To simulate is to feign what one hasn't. One implies a presence, the other an absence. But the matter is more complicated, since to simulate is not simply to feign: "Someone who feigns an illness can simply go to bed and make believe he is ill. Someone (sic) who simulates an illness produces in himself some of the symptoms." Thus, feigning or dissimulating leaves the reality principle intact: the difference is always clear, it is only masked; whereas simulation threatens the difference between "true" and "false," between "real" and "imaginary" (Baudrillard, 1983, p. 5).
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