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diff --git a/ch2.tex b/ch2.tex deleted file mode 100644 index be1a364..0000000 --- a/ch2.tex +++ /dev/null @@ -1,123 +0,0 @@ -% 2 -\chapter{} - -How did this development come to be? Surely more forces were at work than \enquote{Progress?} This -essay is not a history of the information revolution, but some mention must be made in passing. At -some point during the Second World War, a series of decisions to computerize were reached. The -overriding concerns were military and intelligence applications. It should be noted that private -industry would never have invested in this, or any other development. Without government investment, -bankers are paragons of timidity. - -The founders of the information, or cybernetic age, were Alan Turing, John Von Neuman, Norbert -Wiener, Claude Shannon and later, Noam Chomsky. Hordes of electrical engineers---whether they -understood what they were doing or not---reworked almost every philosophical problem known to -humans in terms of circuitry and programming languages. These problems began, of course, centuries -ago. For instance the epistimological question: what is knowledge, how do we know, how do we know we -know, how does it relate to the world outside, who controls knowledge, who has it and who does not, -what is it worth, how do we talk about it (which is the question of what language we shall use and -how shall we talk), and what instrumentalities we perceive through. - -Questions of the technology of knowing must be interwoven with political and economic considerations -(within the confines of what is scientifically and technologically possible), which is to say -knowledge systems are structured like intelligence and counter-intelligence systems. There is to be -written a whole history of secret and coded knowledges\ldots\ priestly systems, rites, hierarchies and -ceremonies of learning and passage, memory systems, networks of initiates\ldots\ In addition, one should -ask: why did one set of systems triumph---that is to say, why were they preserved, and -remembered---and others fail? There is room for a history of the politics of the promotion, funding -and triumph of intellectual knowledge systems and this includes the rememberance of the major -streams of philosophy. Philosophy is one of the atmospheric backgrounds which provides for a general -and unified state of perception against which day to day knowledge is learned. - -The original choices for computers, binary, Boolean (Leibnizian, as Wiener would have it) logic, -reflected a dialectical, even a Manichean approach and was an unfortunate decision. Why these -choices? It was easier to design electrical circuits that could carry out the logic operations. - -The system began slowly, went on line massively with mainframes and minis in the fifties, mostly in -defense and intelligence applications, followed closely by banking and business. - -In the seventies, a massive campaign was mounted to \enquote{democratize} the computer. The micro -was developed by small, innovative businessmen-technicians. Sales propaganda was disseminated in the -name of enlightenment, efficiency, transcendance and power. Every possible sales technique known to -public relations, advertising and mythology was employed to sell the computer. Not only were ancient -and modern symbols deployed, but also fear. It became possible, we were told, to have a computer in -the home that was once as large as a building\ldots\ and did the same work. - -One notes the parallel developments and \enquote{needs}: The committment to the Great Theater of -perpetual war as the pressure system out of which innovation and invention and progress came. This -generated a need for a vast corps of mind-workers. Cheap education produced intellectuals. This led -not only to the further proliferation of mindworkers, but of mediators and mediational systems. -Intelligence and police (and their surveillance systems); psychologists and their theories; many -schools of psychotherapy; sociologists; anthropologists; analysts; coders and decoders; -cryptographers and decryption experts; disinformation-propagating operatives; advertisers; -public-relations flacks; consultants; historians in fifty modes; economists, both practical and -theoretical; financial manipulators, and the buyers of their services (bankers, securities dealers, -brokers, currency dialecticians); new critics; hermeneuticists; structuralists; semioticians; -deconstructionists; quantifiers; metricians; statisticians; propagandists; accountants and auditors; -lawyers and proliferators of law; interactivists (and their connecting machineries); cosmic and -microcosmic theoreticians; agronomists; doctors; philosophical logicians and inventors of yet newer -and newer mathematics; salesmen; priests and ministers and inventors of yet-new religions; logical -and scientific astrologers\ldots\ And now, in the present age, all this to be machined. - -They sought both unity and fragmentation. Now one must admit that there is a propensity in some -humans to generate new unifying theories and technologies while at the same time inventing and -proliferating new explanatory systems and new subtheories\ldots\ all of which promise to explain -everything. This seems to be a function of the density of intellectuals, in terms of availability of -jobs and competition, both relative and absolute, to a general and non-theorizing population. This -insures that a fair percentage of those theories will be nonsensical, if not fraudulent\ldots\ which is -no impediment to their triumph. - -In addition, general systems theory took hold, and every aspect of the universe was designated a -sub-system of some larger system and the largest---and unknown---system of all was a function of -these bureaucratically minded spinners of holisms. - -The early cyberneticians thought that this development would add to---if not exponentially, then at -least incrementally---the sum of human knowledge. Accompanying this development was an ancient -agenda: the compulsion to impose order, predictability, to eliminate risk and uncertainty. But as -far as this ancient agenda was concerned, the commitment should be shared, paid for by some part of -the public. New processes would in turn create still newer knowledge. And, as all things happen in -this modern society, the \enquote{system,} with all of its attendant confusions, complexities and -corruptions, with its intense conflicts among the different programs, systems and equipment -manufacturers, with its political and business battles, has been laid on in the most haphazard, -ridiculous, expensive, inefficient and disorganized way (repeating our earlier history of canals, -railroads, highways, transit systems, communications and technology in general). We now have a -conflict of computer, communicating and language-conversion systems with many fundamental problems -still unsolved. - - -(And here, lest we forget that the problem is not merely \enquote{intellectual,} we must remember -concrete institutions with which intellectuals are connected, and who provide their funding. How, -and to whom, ideas are sold: we must think about AT\&T, Sperry-Rand, IT\&T, IBM, Citicorp and -Chase\ldots\ We must also not forget that there are unwritten and true histories to be done of the -Department of Defense, the National Security Agency, the CIA, all intelligence agencies of the -world, and how the intellectual thought of these agencies permeates every aspect of everyday life. -We must think about the politics of international and national communications policy and how these -issues are fought out in corporations, legislative bodies and regulatory agencies. We must think of -pricing, advertising, marketing, promotion, generations of faulty computers, paper computers, -imbecilic competiton, suppression of innovation, influence-peddling, lobbying, bribes, kickbacks and -the rest of the common paraphenalia of business\ldots\ especially at a time when business becomes -ever-more \enquote{intellectualized.}) - -There was a nescessity to translate all living and non-living forms, to simulate events and natural -processes, to chart their interactions and simulate thse interrelations and to begin to fill the -memory and data banks. This growing assemblage gradually becomes the total environment\ldots\ at least -for a few. These developments are new but are also, at the same time, the fulfillment of an ancient -desire: to control the material world by the manipulation of secret know]ledge (secret, in modern -times, by being priced, being made into intellectual property, being classified). How does this -differ from the practices of ancient priests, shamans, magicians? - -Ancient magicians thought they could control the environment. How did information control the -material world in the past? By assuming a connection between the internal system of intellectual -order and the \emph{external} system of \emph{material} order. One controlled the cosmos by the uses -of resonances and dissonances, rhythms compatible with the true natural rhythm of the spheres, by -the use of a chant, an incantation, a dance, a ritual; or one could apply sacred geometry, -controlling shapes that were analogous to the shape of the worlds one wanted to dominate\ldots\ -magic. Magic embodies a primitive theory of electromagnetism and telecommunication. Magic desires to -achieve telepathy and teleportation. Voodoo, for instance, contains the notion of a communicating -medium and the communicants who believe in it. The Catholic Church is a communicating organism with -an apparatus of switches and relays and a communicating language for the input of prayers through a -churchly switchboard up to Heaven, and outputs returned to the supplicant. And above all, all -ancient and primitive systems implicitly propose the notion of an ordered, coherant universe, -expressible in a certain set of languages, the manipulation of which manipulates the universe. The -question is: do these systems manipulate the universe or a simulation of the universe? What certain -intellectuals in modern society propose is electromagic. - |