Template:M intro design System redundancy: Difference between revisions

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 — all laws of nature are functions 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.  

 

By compiling a sequence of consecutive frames you can create a “cinematic” ''appearance'' of movement. The beauty of a static frame is that it can’t move or do anything unexpected. In this way we replace ''actually'' passing time — ''three'' dimensional objects projecting backwards and forwards in a ''fourth'' dimension — with ''apparently'' passing time rendered in only ''one'' dimension.<ref>Binary code is linear: it has only one dimension.</ref>

For the Turing machines on which [[data modernism]] depends do not do ''[[tense]]''. They are permanently in the ''present''. The apparent continuity through time they vouchsafe is, like cinematography, a conjuring trick: there is no sense of continuity ''in the code'': we ascribe our own sense, from our own natural language, to what we see. The “magic” is not in the machine. It is in our heads.

For existential continuity backwards and forwards in “time”, is precisely the problem the human brain evolved to solve: it demands a projection of continuously existing “things” with definitive boundaries, just one of which is “me”, moving through spacetime, interacting with each other. None of this “continuity” is “in the data”.<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 “consciousness is an illusion”. But on whom?</ref>

Turing machines, and [[data modernism]] that depends on them, does away with the need for time and continuity altogether, instead ''simulating'' it through a succession of static slices — but that continuity vanishes when one regards the picture show as a sequence of still frames.  

Imagine a still frame of two pint glasses, A and B, each containing half a pint of beer. Which is half-full and which is half-empty? This static scenario poses an apparently stupid question. It is often used to illustrate how illogical and imprecise our language is. But this is only true if the still frame is considered in the abstract: that is, stripped of its ''context'' in time and space.

For, imagine a short film at the start of which glass A is full and glass is B empty. Then a little Cartesian imp arrives, picks up glass A and tips half into glass B. ''Now'' which is half-full and which is half-empty? ''That history makes a difference''.  

The second time-bound scenario tells us something small, but meaningful about the history of the world. The snapshot does not.