Hey Thor,
interesting topic.
Well in a way, what is really explicit in a guitar is the fact that
the tone that I hear is a result of my finger position and pressure
(on a grid) and certain movement patterns that I have learned, or
found to be interesting. I think the finger-thought has its
explication in the guitar, just as the programming-thought has its
explication in the code. What is subtle in a program might be quite
implicit as well - often it just very well-tuned or elegant.
I do agree that I can interact really differently with a guitar than
in text. But I think this has more to do with culture than with
nature. The difference in different types of abstractions make them
perceptible. There is no original, "unabstracted", or at least I
don't know where it should be.
At 15:43 Uhr +0100 04.09.2006, thor wrote:
>
>Hey Julian
>
>I found this interesting:
>
>Of course I don't agree with his notion of of "natural" and his
>antimathematical arguments. Thinking "naturally" is mediated already
>by cultural algorithms (language, images, abstractions etc.).
>Programming languages are a way to make this thinking explicit (and
>to be able to change it), however "unnatural" it might seem.
>
>
>I agree with what you are saying regarding programming being a way to
>make often unconscious thoughts "explicit". But in that process, I think we
>often over-simplify and over-generalise (shall I use the word "sterilise"?)
>the subtle texture of meaning and connotations that exist in the "analog"
>world of say painting or guitar playing.
>
>I'm not saying that thinking "naturally" is not algorithmic in the
>way you describe
>above, I'm merely pointing out that abstracting thought into a
>programming language
>is precisely that - an abstraction - and as such we loose
>something/some things.
>
>Of course guitar playing is an abstraction as well, but what I find
>interesting in
>the "analog" world is that our thoughts (here moving fingers being a thought)
>are not necessarily explicit (as is a necessity in thinking in code).
--
.
Received on Tue Sep 05 2006 - 10:14:02 BST