<nettime> Language and computers

[Bishop Z <xchicago@gmail.com>]

“Languages are meant to be spoken, writing is nothing but a supplement  
of speech. … The analysis of thought is made through speech, and the  
analysis of speech through writing; speech represents through    
conventional signs, and writing represents speech in the same way;  
thus the art of writing is nothing but a mediated representation of  
thought, at least in the case of the vocalic languages, the only ones  
that we   use.” Derrida, Pronunciation

I can only imagine what non-vocalic language JD was referring to in  
his time, but these days we have quite a few languages which are non- 
vocalic and do in some way represent thought.

It is this transition from the pre-history of written language to the  
system and structure of collective society that JD refers to as a  
movement from Discourse to the Essay. The ideals our society embody  
come as thoughts, affected by a system of speech, but come into legal  
existence through writing.

It is in fact the logic of writing, over the mere rationality of  
speech, which enables the scientific method, the social contract, the  
keeping of history. Just as the first French dictionary smoothed out  
disparate linguistic communities, it also created a common conceptual  
toolkit for adjudication. While De Landa shows how specifically the  
dictionary aided the development of France as a nation, his study is  
too brief (1000 years) to see it in the context of a transition from  
speech to written language.

More than the cultural homogeneity the Dictionary created, or the  
authoritative position written logic took, the importance for us is to  
see through the logical system of organization which we live in. To  
see logical organization as only one rationality. It is not that we  
need a return to vocalization, or vocal rationality, but rather we can  
take from speech a view of language which is not that of the written  
word, yet still existing in some configuration with our thoughts and  
ideals.

The homogeneity of written logic has become hegemony of truth in  
society. While witnesses in the courtroom and politicians on the  
pulpit may still use vocalization, written law always takes  
precedence. And why shouldn’t it? Writing things down helped humans  
remember stuff. For everything written language enabled us to create,  
it was still humans that were doing the writing. Written words became  
tools for us to express our thoughts, beyond books to institutions and  
discoveries. While these tools may not be prefect, they became our  
best judge of truth, scientific and legal.

Our societal reliance on written logic, and the system of truth it  
creates, has blinded us to the history of language outside of the  
written word. We did not go from vocal primitive humans to modern  
writing humans, and the story doesn’t simply stop there. Even Derrida  
fails to explore the positioning of images, and image rationality, in  
the story of Discourse to Essay. Image was not codified by the  
Dictionary in the same way that spoken language was. Formally the two  
systems of expressed thought have been kept separate because they lack  
a common set of signs. This is why music, despite being expressive, is  
not considered spoken.

The assumption logic has given us is that both language and  
rationality require discrete symbols. The irony of pictographic  
languages and “symbolism” not withstanding. Not only does an image- 
base expression of thought represent a rationality that is different  
than the same thought conveyed through speech, but as representations  
image contains a different set of tools. Images not only express  
things differently, they are capable of expressing different things.

If signs and signifiers of meaning replace the common set of discrete  
symbols that image-based expression fails to share with written and  
spoken languages. Then rather than a transition from vocal to written,  
we can see each medium of expression across a historical landscape of  
communicated thought. What written language brought to speech was  
exactly the discrete set of symbols which made it so beneficial to us,  
and set it apart from the other mediums of expressions. We certainly  
could not use music for adjudication.

Despite this frailty, the other mediums of expression, the sloppy  
ones, continued to be developed. Images spawned motion-images which  
despite their inexactness, increasingly play a role in politics. While  
written contracts continue to have a legal monopoly on truth, there  
are still those that choose not to read, and their direction, the  
direction of those humans, is more influenced by the rationality of  
motion-images, than that of essays and logic.

And that is not all that images spawned. In the 20th century, humans  
have created, hybridized, refined and sub-categorized countless new  
ways of expressing our thoughts. Yet none of these mediums have had  
the kind of power that written language gave us, both in terms of its  
specific advantages and in terms of its ability to control and  
organize our social reality.

However, up until the last 20 years, logic has been the anchor of  
written language. The hegemony of logic is not that written language  
is better than other mediums of expression, but that logic was the  
most accurate form of rationality. Written language just happened to  
be better at logic than speech. Thus humans obscured the written words  
dominance by saying that it was logic’s dominance.

Then the transistor entered the story of human existence, and with it  
came something that we had not seen since we started writing things  
down. For the first time there was a new medium of thought expression  
which did not share the frailty of every medium other than spoken and  
written language. Computer languages had a discrete set of symbols and  
could work out logical problems faster than books. The one thing  
computer languages have not been very good at is expressing the  
thoughts of humans. For all the accounting forms computer languages  
have helped us to create, there are still no novels written in C++.

Computers were designed to do logic, from the transistor up. Computer  
languages were designed to organize and manage logical operations.  
Each computer language had a different toolset of expression, much  
like each spoken language, but those toolsets have always been  
designed in reference to local operators, while the signs, signifiers,  
ideals and thoughts of humans were push to software and devices. This  
division made sense historically. The computer was made to be a  
logical tool, and at some level the language we use to communicate  
with it must be in terms of logical operators.

Much like motion-images, using a computer to express yourself is  
supported by abstracting away from the most difficult and tedious  
aspects of logic, and thus made thought expression more accessible to  
more humans.

But when we look at computer languages, on a landscape of expression,  
we see their common roots with Derrida’s vocalic languages in the  
signs and symbols of thought. Logic may have gotten humans a good  
distance from their primitive history, but ultimately logic’s claim on  
accurate accounting and truth depends upon what it enabled us to do  
when it was written down.

It’s not that logic itself ever had any power to change society, but  
that logic enabled humans to dream in new ways, in ways that held  
true. It was written language, on the other hand, that provided the  
means of logical expression. Written language enabled our true ideas  
to move around the planet, be remembered with specificity through  
generations, and be easily compared with expressions of other true  
thoughts.

Logic’s pervasivity is exactly why we created computers to be logical  
machines. But the relegation of the signs and symbols which make up  
our written language to what is called the “content layer,” separated  
computer based expression from the discrete symbol set that  
distinguished written and spoken language from other mediums of  
expression. On one side of the content divide in computer science are  
languages which share the power of the written word, while on the  
other side are kept all relations to human thought and experience.

It is not that we want irrational computers or illogical computer  
languages, but that we need to incorporate the repositioning of logic  
in relation to expression. If computer languages could contain the  
parts and participles of myths and dreams, as the written word does,  
then the rationality of that language would take precedence over  
logic. Logic was great at pulling humans out of the middle ages  
because it enabled us to build things faster and more accurately, but  
in the next century the pace of innovation comes from whatever system  
enables us to build faster and better. Ultimately, what we think is  
right exceeds what we can prove.

As computer languages become more able to express human ideals, logic  
not only becomes repositioned, but also destabilized. This is why  
academics tug at our notions of authenticity within our research. This  
is why we laugh about celebrating only success and not failure. While  
written language gave us the scientific method, the social contract,  
and the keeping of history, it was logic’s dominance that made those  
systems work.

As computers learn to speak the language of humans, they are doing  
more than simply replacing our methods of conducting science,  
business, government and history. They are making accessible the  
toolsets of accuracy, authenticity, and truth. More than being logical  
machines, computers are becoming human machines, in that their  
operations are becoming a medium of human expression.

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