Template:M intro design System redundancy: Difference between revisions

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 Done of this is new: just our enthusiasm for it. The prophet of [[data modernism]] was [[Frederick Winslow Taylor]], progenitor of the maximally efficient production line. His inheritors say things like, “[[The Singularity is Near|the singularity is near]]” and “[[Software is eating the world|software will eat the world]]” but for all their millenarianism the on-the-ground experience at the business end of this all world-eating software is as grim as it ever was.
 ====Time====
-We have a theory that in reducing everything to measured inputs and outputs, [[data modernism]] collapses into a kind of ''[[reductionism]]'', only about ''time'': just as reductionists see our knowledge of the universe as being reducible to infinitesimally small sub-atomic essences — so a function of theoretical physics — so do data modernists see all of commerce as explicable in terms of infinitesimally small windows of ''time'' so thin that they are static. Let’s call these windows “frames”, resembling as they do individual frames in a movie reel. The beauty of static frames is, not being in motion, they can’t do anything unexpected. Yet, if you run a sequence of consecutive frames close to one another they ''appear'' to move, in the same way that still movie frames do. In this way does data modernism replace  the ''actual'' passage of time with the appearance of passing time.
+We have a theory that in reducing everything to measured inputs and outputs, [[data modernism]] collapses into a kind of ''[[reductionism]]'', only about ''time'': just as reductionists see all knowledge as being reducible to infinitesimally small, sub-atomic essences — in other words, all laws of nature are a function of theoretical physics — so [[data modernist]]s see socio-economics as reducible to infinitesimally small windows — “frames” — of ''time'': so thin as to be static, resembling the still frames of a movie reel. The beauty of static frames is they don’t move, so can’t do anything unexpected. By compiling a sequence of consecutive frames you can create a “cinematic” ''appearance'' of movement. In this way we replace ''actually'' passing time with ''apparently'' passing time.
-Data modernism has no concept of time at all: the computer languages in which it is written don’t do [[tense|''tense'']]: they are coded in the present, and have no frame of reference for continuity.
+For the computer code in which it data modernism is written has do [[tense|''tense'']]: it is permanently in the present. Its continuity is a card trick on its user: in fact, we ascribe our own sense of continuity, from our own language, to the code. Like all good magic it relies on misdirection. It is odd we are so willing to ascribe to a box the magic in our heads.
-But 'existential continuity backwards and forwards in “time” is precisely the problem that the human brain solves: this is the thing that demands continuously existing “things”, just one of which is “me”, moving through a spatio-temporal universe, interacting with each other and hence requiring definitive boundaries.<ref>{{author|David Hume}} wrestled with this idea of continuity: if I see you, then look away, then look back at you, what ''grounds'' do I have for believing it is still “you”?  Computer code makes no such assumption. It is the human genius to make that logical leap. How we do it, and how consciousness works, defies explanation. {{author|Daniel Dennett}} made a virtuoso attempt to apply this algorithmic [[reductionist]] approach to the problem of mind in {{br|Consciousness Explained}}, but ended up defining away the very thing he claimed to explain, effectively concluding “consciouness is an illusion”. But on whom?</ref>
+For existential continuity, backwards and forwards in “time”, is precisely the problem that the human brain solves: this is the thing that demands continuously existing “things”, just one of which is “me”, moving through a spatio-temporal universe, interacting with each other and hence requiring definitive boundaries. This is a construction out of whole cloth.<ref>{{author|David Hume}} wrestled with this idea of continuity: if I see you, then look away, then look back at you, what ''grounds'' do I have for believing it is still “you”?  Computer code makes no such assumption. It captures property A, timestamp 1; property A timestamp 2, property A timestamp 3: these are discrete objects with common property, in a permanent present — code imputes no necessary link between them, not does it extrapolate intermediate states. It is the human genius to make that logical leap. How we do it, ''when'' we do it — generally, how human consciousness works, defies explanation. {{author|Daniel Dennett}} made a virtuoso attempt to apply this algorithmic [[reductionist]] approach to the problem of mind in {{br|Consciousness Explained}}, but ended up defining away the very thing he claimed to explain, effectively concluding “consciouness is an illusion”. But on whom?</ref>
 [[Data modernism]] thereby does away with the need for time and continuity altogether, but rather ''simulates'' it through a succession of static slices — but continuity vanishes when one regards the picture show as a sequence of frames.