Nmherman on Tue, 8 Jan 2002 08:02:02 +0100 (CET)


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[Nettime-bold] Max Herman Speaks Out Re: <nettime> Behind the Blip: Software as Culture


In a message dated 1/7/2002 4:55:31 PM Central Standard Time, matt@axia.demon.co.uk writes:


The book is at once a rescue of philosophy from its status as doomed
elite subculture staffed by the populations of the soon-to-be closed
ghost departments of the universities of Europe, but also as a
restatement of the primary task of philosophy: the invention of
concepts.  In order to state their case for this, they need to clear
the decks of other ways in which the term is used.  One of the problems
facing their use of this term is, they see, that:

"In successive challenges, philosophy faced increasingly insolent and
calamitous rivals that Plato himself would have never imagined in his
most comic moments.  Finally the most shameful moment came when
computer science, marketing, design and advertising, all the
disciplines of communication, seized hold of the word concept itself
and said: 'This is our concern, we are the creative ones, we are the
ideas men!  we are the friends of the concept, we put it in our
computers."'17



For one, I know a certain Platonist who says "there are no such thing as concepts."  I can't say for sure if he's right, but he might be.  If he is, it will add one more layer to the D&G discussion of concepts.  What are concepts?  What is philosophy? 

D&G are talking about creating life, what is mind-life, what is the practitioner practicing. 

Genius 2000 is of course an excellent expert on the ideas of generation and birth.  It's one of our main studies.  Thus has a direct academic lineage been found between D&G and G2K.  Hundreds of G2K Phd's are now officially in order.  (Consider G2K to be an advanced revision and correction of D&G as they are widely interpreted.)  If there are any students on this list, I guarantee you will get an A if you write such a paper.  Any teachers onlist?  You could assign the essay and make your students famous.

As for any reasonable discussion of Fuller's post, recently on Max Herman Free Zone Thingserver, I will leave it among you all, but I think Fuller lacks concision and overall G2K context regarding a few issues.  These include 1.  What does it mean to create concepts;  2.  Some of Fuller's message seems insufficiently though clumsily messianic;  3.  Not to mention that software culture is already well in place quite firmly;  4.  I find his implicit call for "a new kind of intellectual" redolent of academia's most chafing periodic rejuvenations;  5.  But hey he's certainly talking about some ideas relevant to Genius 2000, like new systematic redefinitions of the histor, network analyst, concept-creator, genius, etc., and may have found an excellent D&G quote to use in my PhD.

Gor' bless us all,

Max Herman

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