Computing Machinery and Intelligence

 

           In Computing Machinery and Intelligence, Turing mentioned how or is it possible to have thinking machines?  He argued from a point of view of suppose there are three separate individual: man or women, and the third being a moderator in order to guess who are the other two individual men or women?  The function of the moderator is actually the thinking machines.  The Imitation Game is what he would call such process. 

          

He proposed a machine which is called Digital computer which would follow the human computer which followed the fixed rules.  The process that Turing mentioned in his paper can be seen now a day, in messaging.  It was not possible during this period however it is Turing’s thoughts and ideas that brought forth this possibility. 

 

He also presented view that is contrary to these ideas.  There are 6 views which he mentioned.  Theological objection, Heads in the Sand, Mathematical Objection, Argument from consciousness, Argument from Various Disabilities, and Lady Lovelace’s Objection.  In “Argument from Consciousness” Professor Jefferson expressed in Lister Oration not unless a machine can write a sonnet can we equate a machine with brain.  This brought forth many interesting questions.  A machine can only do what is being input.  To program a machine to think, do, and feel like human we will never have such machine.  The closest is robot being program to do specific tasks.  But those are discrete task not a continuous task as would human can.  A robot can be program to do multiple tasks but not the entire task human can.  I thought this was interesting and indeed such a machine is yet to be seen in reality.  Even if there is such machine (artificial intelligence) it does not contain soul which define human.  Nevertheless, it is useful to have such machine to enhance human life and to make our life a bit more convenience.

  

I just read Vannevar Bush's article and was really "captured" by his quote about Mathematicians.

 

"A mathematician is not a man who can readily manipulate figures; often he cannot.  He is not even a man who can readily perform transformations of equations by the use of calculus.  He is primarily an individual who is skilled in the use of symbolic logic on a high plane, and especially he is a man of intuitive judgement in the choice of the manipulative processes he employs."

 Apart from liking his estimation of us math folk.  I found interesting playing a game of most closely matching the current technologies which match his descriptions.  I found roughly what I think are: printer, server, barcodes and credit cards, file manager or windows' explorer, tabbed browsing and of course the hyperlink. 

In this article we are introduced to the concept of 'hypertext' as first envisioned by its grandfather, Ted Nelson. The concept of hypertext as he describes it, was a paradigm shift back before the world wide web was even created. Therefore it was sort of trippy, reading about hypertext from the perspective of it's creator (i.e. someone who doesn't know how it has transformed into what it is today, unlike the reader). Additionally, for the reader it is interesting to read about Nelson's logic and motivations behind 'hypertext' and how is initial inclinations towards existing file structures were largely inadequate. This article was published in ACM in 1965. However, it wasn't until the late 1980's that Tim Berners-Lee created the first browser using hypertext as a means to link between documents, thus, unveiling the limitless potential of hypertext on a global scale. Nevertheless, Nelson was able to envision the potential of his ideas stating that the potential of hypertext is 'grave' where a system incorporating it could grow indefinitely gradually including more and more of the world's written knowledge (sounds like the modern-day Internet).

The article forced me to reflect predominantly about three ideas. The first concerns how much of modern day computing I am still unaware of. In fact, through all of the articles we have read in The New Media Reader, I am a bit overwhelmed with the amount of rich conversation and knowledge sharing that has taken place throughout the history of computing. As a computer scientist / information scientist, I am disappointed in myself for not knowing as much, as I think I should, at least from a historical perspective. My second reflection after reading this article was on the process of how scientists (and/or the general public) go about describing their new innovation(s). So much of what gets invented, in the past as it does today, acquires a definition that is explained by existing knowledge (or vernacular) of the time, even to describe fundamental shifts of thought. It reminds of how at the turn of the 20th century the automobile was known as the horseless carriage by lay people. Rather than accept the automobile as a unique entity they looked at it rather as a modification of a pre-existing artifact.

Lastly, the article reminds me about a current-day shift in file structures through the use of tags (or metadata). Particularly with Web 2.0 content, today's file structures allow users to group digital media (whether blogs, files, html) based on the metadata (or data about the data). ANd like Nelson's hypertext, I feel this is a paradigm shift away from thinking about documents as singular, to treating documents as collaborative work.

Citation:
T. H. Nelson. A File Structure of the Complex, the Changing, and the Indeterminate. In Proceedings of the 20-th National ACM Conference, pages 84 – 100, Cleveland, OH, August

24 – 26, 1965.

Finally, I found this very artsy video on hypertext. Content-wise, it's lacking, but at least it's short:

The thing that struck me the most in this article is the word “symbiosis” because I have not heard it in this context before. Why did the author specifically choose this word instead of partnership or synergistic coupling? Maybe the answer of this question is to inspire the readers about his vision of thinking as no human brain has ever thought! So what is Licklider’s vision? His vision is basically computers helping men in complex thinking, decision making through interactive programming capable of analyzing and presenting recommendations that humans could accept, reject, or change. In order for the “symbiosis” to occur Licklider specifies five required technological advancements. While reading these required advancements, one should keep in mind that the computers in 1960 were stand-alone calculating devices that required punching holes in papers for input. From this perspective, I found his ideas on time sharing, indelible memory, published memory, and language problem fascinating. Based on a quick Internet search, Licklider headed a small group of technicians who developed one of the earliest time sharing system and these systems were only limited large scale computers at that time due to cost. Furthermore, it seems that in 1962 Licklider and Clark expanded this list to a longer list of ten requirements.

 

According to Wikipedia (2008), this article was the lead article in the first issue of first volume of Institute of Radio Engineers Transactions on Human Factors in Electronics Journal. Today, many internet historians cite Licklider’s article because of its influential nature in predicting the Internet’s development. For anyone, who is interested in this topic, I would recommend “Technomanifestos: Visions of the Information Revolutionaries" because in this book Adam Brate (2002) organizes the development of the information age in four distinct phases: Frontier, Revolution, Power, and “Symbiosis”.  In conclusion, I now understand why this paper is cited as a road map for future computer research.       

Robert Wiener’s (1954) paper, entitled “Men, Machines, and the World About” was a rather interesting read. I say interesting, because the first half or more of the paper to me seemed to be more of a human anatomy/psychology class. Initially, I did not see the value and point of such discussions, however this changed as I progressed with the rest of the paper (Wiener, 1954) and noticed more of the analogies and metaphors the author was establishing between a human being and a computer machine. Even though I personally value the topic of human-computer interaction, reading the various analogies Wiener (1954) presented made me realize the further potential of understanding and studying such a hot topic.

Even though I agreed with the majority of the discussion presented by Wiener (1954), I have some concerns regarding his answer of “no” to the question he addressed: “Is man likely to use better emergency judgment than a machine?” (Wiener, 154, p.70). We all know that computer machines are powerful, but what is important to note here, is that we as human beings empower such technological advances. A computer is merely programmed with a set of rules, instructions, algorithms, etc., and without such programming the machine will not function properly. Now with regards to emergency cases in specific, I would agree that machines are more powerful than humans in that they have no emotions that can get in the way of conducting a specific course of action, which could ultimately create negative consequences. The bottom line is that the machine is very powerful and useful, however we need to be in charge and drive the machine and not let the machine rule and govern our lives and human nature. The proper analysis, research and due diligence is surely required when attempting to automate manual human activities and processes.

I definitely agree with Wiener’s (1954) thoughts on that depending on machines, and the elimination of human beings, could definitely lead to a disaster. In this day and age we highly depend on machines, and our daily lives cannot progress smoothly without having our machines/technology (pda’s, cell phones, lap tops, internet), but the question I continuously seek answers for is: “What are we doing to ensure proper disaster recovery management?” This is an area that is definitely lacking, and is not being addressed properly.

Our authors like french so much I thought I'd use some french to convey my opinion of their writings.  So far Vannevar Bush's article was the most comprehenisble.  I'll spare everyone a rehash of a previous post, but after reading Landow's "Hypertext and critical theory" I thought the title of this post appropose.  oooops!  I did it again.  =)

In Hypertext and Critical Theory, George Landau explains that hypertext is cluster of words that linked to other words or images in infinity. Then, what define reading?  Before the proliferation of internet, people are accustomed to reading books by having that book physically present either holding the book or place it on the book stand.

With the advances in technology, reading now becomes an exercise of click of a mouse. 

 Since reading through the hypertext the reader will be reading from one point to the next without finishing reading the previous part which is what he refers to de-centering and multivocality when one consciousness is absorbed into another. 

Of course, reading now a day mean turning on the computer and being less convenient. 

 At the same token, there are vast amount of information that one can read through this hypertext which make it interesting and invaluable. There are gives and take with the evolution of technology.  The Digital generation will be more comfortable and attune to such a way of reading.  Nevertheless,  paper bag book are not going away I don’t think because of its convenience and many are still reading through such a mode. 

At some point as I read about Oulipo I realized that this was not some 'ancient' group, but really a quite recent (40+ years ago) experiment by some writers, some of which could still be alive today.

Anyway I looked up wikipedia.  Why has wikipedia become such a first stab repository in only 2 years or so, I am bewildered!!  Especially when it's the pastime of Mudd students to rewrite wikipedia with false information.   Anyway I  looked up wikipedia and found this entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oulipo

Strange to see the list of current members as of 2006. The group also contains mathematicians, as I guessed would be necessary since combinatorics is relied on so heavily, but i figured mathematicians would be advisors to the group not members.

Anyway as an aspiring mathematician, I found the article somewhere about 2-3 levels off from a published paper in a math journal.  This made the article neither a true article, since there was a leaning to try to explain a lot of the math, nor worthy of a math journal entry, since rigour was abandoned so as to make the article accessible I guess.

I would have much preferred for the best of such an endeavour, e.g. the most coherent poem or interesting story, to also have been included, just so as to perk my interest a bit more. 

 

 

...And none of them usable for Valentines day.  Really I checked.

Okay maybe I didn't check, but I couldn't help being sarcastic, as so few of this 10 to the power 14 poems are actually sensible or have a real point.  Anyway this is a stock criticism, I really just wanted to highlight that if you're looking for poetry for any reason but to say, "Hey my machine did it!" then the one hundred thousand billion won't help you.

Don Pedro from his shirt has washed the fleas
That hordes of crooks felt they'd more right to own
Upon his old oak chest he cuts his cheese
Which neither time nor tide can long postpone

Oh how oh how he hates such pilferings
That metred rhyme alone can souls enslave
Proud death quite illegitimately stings
Through homestead hillside woodland rock and cave

Poetic licence needs no strain or stress
Or grinning like a pale-faced golliwog
The country land just thrives on farmyard mess
With breaking voice across the Alps they slog
The Taj Mahal has trinkets spice and gum
For Europe's glory while Fate's harpies strum

Aetolia, the Midnight Age

Lusternia - Age of Ascension

and the top ranked and seemingly most popular, Achaea. 

Hey Everyone,

Here is a one minute video of a reading that is supposedly created in the Oulipo tradition although I do not recall seeing Roderick Coover (video) and Nick Montfort (text) on the Wikipedia list of Oulipo members. It is read by Brett Keyser. I think it might make more sense if some more information is provided on how it was put together.

 

 

When searching the web for combinatory literature, I was unable to find a working definition. Instead, there seemed to be a lot of outdated sites. However, I was able to find a definition that seemed to lump combinatory literature together the wider notion of digital poetry. Digital poetry (also referred to as E-poetry, short for electronic poetry, also computer poetry), according to Wikipedia, refers to a wide range of approaches to poetry that all have in common prominent and crucial use of computers. For the most part, the term considers any text, media, images, sounds and interactions that are developed programmatically. I was worried seeing it lumped together with poetry, since there was a couple of examples of pure poetry (that is, in the Greek sense) in the New Media Reader.

When I think about combinatory anything I am reminded of the field of natural language processing, which uses computer programs to automatically extract and interpret human language. However, in this field, the goal is not to create radical prose, but to generate coherent meaningful text. There is a lot of cool research being done in this field (see Gondy Leroy for areas in health informatics), but the areas also include speech recognition, and intelligent chatterbots (slightly better than A.L.I.C.E.).

 

Therefore, while we are trying to wrap our minds around the radical departure of coherent text through computer generated digital poetry, it is comforting to know that there is also a lot of work being done, using similar technologies to make text more succinct and meaningful.

The Garden of Forking Paths (El Jardin de senderos que se bifurcan): In this detective/mystery short story, the author questions the idea of a single path or a linear process. In this context, Borges talks about the theory of multiple realities and infinitely forking paths. Based on this theory, we can be whatever we dream. For instance, Yu Tsun and Dr. Stephen Albert could be friends in one branch (forking path) and enemies in another branch. The main idea behind this theory is that a man chooses all alternatives simultaneously rather than selecting one and eliminating others when confronted with a number of alternatives. I think an important aspect of this essay is the cultural issues during a war time because Yu Tsun does not seem to love Germans. He is working for them because he wants to show them what an Asian could do. In conclusion, I felt like a high school kid while I was reading this philosophical essay and I am not sure how it relates to the essays we read last week.

  

Nonlinearity and Literary Theory: This article focuses on the influence of nonlinear texts over more traditional literary. Aarseth considers textons and scriptons as two units of writing(meaning). Texton is simply the smallest unit of discourse and scripton is unbroken sequences of textons. The main idea is that hypertext is non-linear because it allows re-ordering of scriptons. What this means is that nonlinearity comes from presenting meaningful units of discourse in multiple ways. From this perspective, the author classifies nonlinear texts according to topology, dynamics, determinability, transiency, maneuverability, and user functionality. After reading this article, I made a quick Google search and found various ideas on this issue because in ARIST volume 35 (2001) Bluestein and Staveley wrote an article named “Why Hypertext is not especially non-linear”. In this article, the authors argue that hypertext is not anymore nonlinear than other forms of writing. Check the link for further information: http://users.cs.dal.ca/~jamie/hypertext/note:nonlin.html

 

Oulipo: This word stands for Ouvroir de littérature potentielle, which means workshop of potential literature. It appears that Oulipo is a gathering of mostly French speaking writers and mathematicians seeking to create works using constrained writing techniques (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oulipo). In a way, this reminded me one of our earlier discussions in which poets writing poems without using the “e” letter. In A Hundred Thousand Billion Poems, Quenaeau talks about a technique to write 10¹⁴ different poems. According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oulipo#Oulipian_works), Quenaeau inspired from children’s picture books which allowed different pictures to be combined in many ways. The author estimates that it would take 200 million years for a person read them even reading 24 hours a day. This link below shows a web based interactive version of these poems (http://www.bevrowe.info/Poems/QueneauRandom.html). 

       

 

Afternoon:   The significance of this story is that it is the first hypertext fiction. Based on Wikipedia, this story is published on diskette and distributed in the same way as a book (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afternoon:_a_story). According to Aarseth, afternoon is a classic example of modernist literature. Thus, Aarseth focuses on this story in a chapter of his book called “Hypertext Aesthetics” to explain hypertext fiction.  According to Kirschenbaum (2005), Afternoon has been published in no less than six different versions and editions over the years (http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/electropoetics/sited).  From my point of view, this is not an easy read because successions of events are not always clear. From this perspective, Afternoon can be read in different orders. Therefore, I think one needs to read it several times to a get good grasp of this story.  

Hypertext and Critical Theory: George Landow is known as a pioneer in the analysis of hypertext and hypermedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Landow_(professor)) A quote I like in the beginning of this book is that “what is unnatural in print becomes natural in the electronic medium and soon no longer need saying at all, because it can be shown” (p. 99). I think the best example to this is the interactive web version of the a hundred billion thousand poems (http://www.bevrowe.info/Poems/QueneauRandom.html) because I did not fully understand this article without actually interacting with the technique the author proposed in that essay. According to the author, an advantage of hypertext systems is the ability to allow readers to choose their own center of investigation and experience. The author explains this advantage by stating that “the reader is not locked into any kind of particular organization or hierarchy” (p. 106). I think this was my main issue with the story Afternoon because I am not used to this style and it was difficult for me to see the succession of events.            

...but he definitely needs writing help.  Of course I need writing help as well, but at least I'm not publishing articles.

 

I found his first article extremely hard to read, and his second only slightly better.

That said, what I did grasp i did agree with to an extent.  I've often heard and sometimes used the argument,"it's not the <insert_media_form_here> that's bad but how it's used, but I now see and agree with his point that, that's a particularly weak argument.  The form is an expression of a worldview and does have immense effect.

The example that the money economy "caused a slow but irresistable revolution, culminating in the breakdown of feudal government and the resumption of intercourse with foreign countries after more than two hundred years of seclusion" was a particularly strong example.  Of course it's open to debate, but I'm sure one will find more than just strands of truth in the statement.

I'm interested in what Mcluahn might comment about the instant message, cellphone, palm, computer culture of the 21st century. What kind of changes in sense perceptionhave these caused?

 

There seems to be parallel in Two Selection by M. McLuhan and Computer Lib by Theodore Nelson.  Both consider computer as media form. For McLuhan, media overwhelm the importance of content, where Nelson resound what McLuhan’s idea of media by redesigning the media.  Nelson’s compare the media we lived in with that fish living in the water.

 

In Nelson’s Dream machine he presented his observation how the computer professionals has at most part kept the sacred know how to themselves where the public is kept at bay.

Since I don’t know how it was really in those days about the evolution of computer, by reading his writing I sensed that during those days it must be pretty confusing for general public to learn about computer.  Then, the view on how computer should be taught in schools.  I agree that students should be allowed to discover the learning on their own.  There is nothing wrong with that at all.  However, there are a couple of points that I think is missing from that, one is the rudimentary is just as important as creativity.  Once the rudimentary is clear then the exploration can take place this occur in any discipline.  Another factor is time.  If we don’t have to be concern about sequence of learning, then each students will discover on his or her own about certain concept about computer.  Then it will take different amount of time for students with varying aptitude and curiosity to learn.  Suppose some student manage to learn 4 items in the semester, and other learn one item for the entire semester, would this be considered learning?  Does it matter the amount of material learn per each individual students by the specific time?  If each student does not need to be concern about time then the definition of learning would be- care-free and creative.  Nothing is wrong with that either.  Since we are driven by time everyday we live our live, it is not feasible I don’t think to do it without some sort of sequence. Nelson is a visionary no doubt. 

 

For those of you who are interesting in reading about the successful failure of Nelson's Xanudu, you can find the ful Wired article (written by Gary Wolf) at http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.06/xanadu.html

Enter Nelson’s article, the first For Dummies guide to computing. This article also reminds me of the Video Professor. I’m sure everyone has seen this guy (YouTube below if you haven’t). Anyway, this guy drives me crazy. Plus, he's probably crazy rich.

All kidding aside , while reading Nelson, I am attempting to teleport back over thirty years, before the invention of graphical user interfaces, even before the introduction of the mouse. I like Nelson. I like, although he is too arrogant to admit, that he envisioned the idea of hypertext and how his vision helped, to a modest degree, create today’s global internetwork of computers (for good or bad). However, I believe what Nelson was attempting in this article was incredibly idealistic (even for him).

When reading Nelson, we cannot disregard the historical context from which he is writing. To me, this is more important than his elaborate illustrations of what and how computer programs will be used within CAI.  A quick summary of most widely publicized home computer will look to put things into perspective.

1975 - Altair 8800 (provided by http://fusionanomaly.net/altair8800.html )

The January edition of Popular Electronics featured the Altair 8800 computer kit, based on Intel's 8080 microprocessor, on its cover. Within weeks of the computer's debut, customers inundated the manufacturing company, MITS, with orders. Bill Gates and Paul Allen licensed BASIC as the software language for the Altair. Ed Roberts invented the 8800 -- which sold for $297, or $395 with a case -- and coined the term "personal computer." The machine came with 256 bytes of memory (expandable to 64K) and an open 100-line bus structure that internal linkevolved into the S-100 standard. In 1977, MITS sold out to Pertec, which continued producing Altairs through 1978.

Good luck to the average computer buyer in 1975! Where the hell is the monitor & keyboard?

But hell, his Computer Lib / Dream Machines did inspire the creator of Lotus 1-2-3, dubbed the first “killer PC application”. Lotus 1-2-3 was a user-friendly spreadsheet that became a must have business application. Why? Because almost anybody could use it; a concept reverberated continuously across Nelson’s article.

See Nelson, while you were wasting your life away on Xanadu, people were out fulfilling your Dream Machine!

Medium is the Message: Message is “the change of scale or pace or pattern that a new invention or innovation into human affairs” What does this statement really mean when we consider it from today’s perspective such as the Internet, podcasting. McLuhan explains that a new invention has both anticipated and unanticipated consequences. The anticipated consequences include what it is intended to do. However, society and culture have influence on unanticipated consequences that we did not consider in our planning. In a way, this sounds similar to Theodor Nelson’s vision of Internet with Xanadu and how the current Internet differs from what he had thought. I think an important idea that McLuhan wants us to get from this paper is that we should focus on the change in inter-personal dynamics that an innovation brings rather than the content. For example, what is the message in a theoretical play? Is it the music or play? From McLuhan’s perspective, it is the change in the attitude of the audience. Thus, my understanding from this essay is that when we face an innovation we should look beyond the apparent advantages in order to see non-obvious effects of an innovation.

 

Constituents of a Theory of the Media: This article outlines seven characteristics that would constitute emancipatory media. These are decentralized program, each receiver a potential transmitter, mobilization of masses, collective production, interaction of those involved, feedback, social control by self organization, a political learning process. I guess we can criticize the extent to which the Internet meets these characteristics.  Based on Wikipedia (2008), Enzensberger is classic Marxist thinker. Although I do not understand Marxism, I found that the convergence of media idea fascinating considering that this article was written in 1970.  

 

Requiem for the Media: This article seems as a response to Enzensberger’s article because Baudrillard argues that making everyone a producer will not make things better. From this perspective, Baudrillard consider our very understanding of the communication as the problem rather than who transmits or how turn taking is arranged. Reading this essay made me consider the idea of reversibility of producer/consumer with mass newspaper and video networks. I think Baudrillard has a different point of view compared to Enzensberger in this perspective. However, I did not understand the Baudrillard’s transgressing idea.

 

From Computer Lib/ Dream Machines: Another essay written by Nelson. I think I like Nelson’s essays. Nelson has two perspectives. The first one is the current state of computer as a cultural tool and the second one is desired state for computers as a cultural tool. When reading this paper we should consider an era that was dominated by IBM. This essay talks about dreams about knowledge sharing networks and graphic interfaces. Professor Chaterjee showed us some very interesting work done in Xerox Labs regarding to graphical user interface. When I looked at Amazon for this book, I learned that this book computer culture classic.      

Remediation

 

Bolter and Grusin impressed upon readers that remediation is a process of technology evolving around current technology that it improve itself as time progress along.

Film, television, photography and still image all morph into what we see today on the net the hypermediacy.  The split screen on the television for example is projection of image that first introduced through the internet, which now become  familiarize in the television medium.  The evolution or each of the medium upon one another creates hypermedia in a fascinating way that image becomes alive on the internet.  Now, people can decide to make the picture or fix the part into perfect picture.  Canvassing anything needs to be fix so it will look not only real but perfect.  Mechanical production of images on the internet is becoming an instantaneous process.  That people take granted for now a day. Of course, this should be taken in the proper direction because a picture worth a thousand words picture may give a wrong message or interpreted in the wrong way.   Images produce on the internet could send a message in a negative or positive direction.  Therefore, as media remediate upon itself we hope more positive outcome will out weigh the negative ones.

  

You're invited to join us for two public lectures at Harvey Mudd College next week:

Tuesday, Feb. 26

Walter and Leonore Annenberg Visiting Professors in Leadership and Management Series "Technology Leadership and Decision Making at Intel Corporation"

Justin R. Rattner (bio below)

V.P. and Senior Fellow

Director, Corporate Technology Group and Intel Chief Technology Officer

Wednesday, Feb. 27

Dr. Bruce J. Nelson Distinguished Speaker Series:

Spaces That Shape

"Work in Progress #136"

Thom Mayne (bio below)

Architect, Morphosis Architecture

Both lectures begin at 7 p.m. in Galileo Hall. A dessert reception will follow.

About Justin Rattner

Justin Rattner is responsible for leading Intel's microprocessor, communications and systems technology labs and Intel research. In 1989, Rattner was named Scientist of the Year by R&D Magazine for his leadership in parallel and distributed computer architecture. In December 1996, Rattner was featured as Person of the Week by ABC World News for his visionary work on the Department of Energy ASCI Red System, the first computer to sustain one trillion operations per second (one

teraFLOPS) and the fastest computer in the world between 1996 and 2000.

In 1997, Rattner was honored as one of the Computing 200, the 200 individuals having the greatest impact on the U.S. computer industry today, and subsequently profiled in the book Wizards and Their Wonders from ACM Press.

Rattner has received two Intel Achievement Awards for his work in high performance computing and advanced cluster communication architecture.

He is a longstanding member of Intel's Research Council and Academic Advisory Council. He currently serves as the Intel executive sponsor for Cornell University where he serves on the External Advisory Board for the School of Engineering. Rattner joined Intel in 1973. He was named its first principal engineer in 1979 and its fourth Intel fellow in 1988. Prior to joining Intel, Rattner held positions with Hewlett-Packard Company and Xerox Corporation. He received his bachelor's and master's degrees from Cornell University in electrical engineering and computer science in 1970 and 1972, respectively.

About Thom Mayne

Thom Mayne received his bachelor of architecture degree from the University of Southern California in 1968 and his master of architecture from Harvard University in 1978. He was a founder of the Southern California Institute of Architecture and has held teaching positions at Columbia University, Harvard University (Elliot Noyes Chair, 1998), Yale University (Eliel Saarinen Chair, 1991), the Berlage Institute in the Netherlands and the Bartlett School of Architecture in London.

Currently, he holds a tenured faculty position at the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture.

His distinguished honors include the National Design Award for Architecture (2006), Pritzker Prize Laureate (2005), Rome Prize Fellowship from the American Academy of Design in Rome (1987), the Alumni of the Year Award from USC (1992), Member Elect from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1992), and the 2000 American Institute of Architects/Los Angeles Gold Medal in Architecture. With Morphosis, Mayne has been the recipient of 25 Progressive Architecture Awards, 60 AIA Awards and numerous other design recognitions. Under his direction, the firm has been the subject of extensive publications and exhibitions throughout the world.

- - - - -

Don Davidson > Director of Public Relations > Harvey Mudd College

301 Platt Blvd. > Claremont, CA 91711 > (909) 607-7924

Well, for most of my input, please see today's relevant wiki pages (located @ http://conversation.cgu.edu/is347/page/Feb+26).

In preparing for today's discussion, I was having a difficult time focusing on any specific area since the authors pretty much cover 'all' types of digital media. Making it more difficult is the idea that immediacy and hypermedia are pervasive, again, in most all aspects of technology at present. 

The book begins with examples and/or references from a number of films in the 90s. The two mentioned Natural Born Killers and Strange Days (which was on FMC not two nights ago) helped to classify a genre along with other films such as Love and a .45 (which, funny enough, I watched just the other day). In each of these films media plays an integral part of the plot. Thus, the medium itself becomes an essential character. I just wished they focused more on a good story, rather than finding innovative ways in which to tell a bad one. But that's usually how bad films are. They rely more on trying to trick the viewers sense of a good movie by focusing on other aspects of a film that are not necessarily integral parts of the plot (violence, sex, special effects, etc). I mean, how many people went and saw King Kong.

Nevertheless (I think most of the above was tangential), the authors attempt to portray remediation as simply a representation of one media in another. But this in itself is impossible to do. If this transition is so simple (which the authors say is not necessarily the case) I wonder why it is so difficult for many people to watch a black and white film. I know people who just cannot do it. Why? I don't know for sure, but it's likely because it doesn't make sense not to have colors and therefore the movie is unappealing or "too fake" or whatever.

First, based on my understanding, a new medium is justified by its ability to fill a lack or repairing a fault in its predecessor. For instance, video conferencing and interactive television repair inadequacies in the mediums that they refresh. In this context, I understood mediation as the representation of an object. In this representation, the object is structured and presented by a medium.  

 

It seems that there are two ideas regarding to the new media. The first idea suggests that the new media based on digital technologies such as WWW, computer graphics, and virtual reality should establish new cultural principles by divorcing themselves from earlier media. In Remediation the authors challenge this idea because they propose a theory which suggests that the new (digital) media should borrow elements from old media while it is refreshing the old one. The authors call this process “remediation” and they give examples of how the earlier media refreshed older media. For instance, photography remediated painting and film remediated theatre.

 

The authors state that the process of remediation is based on two strategies: Immediacy and hypermediacy. Immediacy means that the style of visual representation. The goal of immediacy is simply to go beyond the medium to the objects of representation themselves. For instance, the traditional linear perspective painting and film keep the viewer distant from what he or she views. But, virtual reality places the viewer among the objects of representation. Hypermediacy is about our fascination about the medium, which is related to the desire for immediacy.

Finally, here is an intersting video relating to the ideas in this book from Studio IMC at the Museum of TV & Radio.

As I read the book this week.  I found it necessary to review my understanding of what modernism means and what postmodernism means.

 

In my understanding, modernism was a set of beliefs in the strength of human science.  Almost a thought that "everything can be solved", "everything can be discovered", "all problems can me resolved", "nothing is beyond man's mind and we can completely document reality".  And postmodernism is a direct reaction to this driven by discoveries of our limitations, the differences in perspectives from person to person, and the popularity of new ways of viewing or detailing life.

Anyway I looked up the definitions and realized my understanding was quite insufficient (to be nice).

Here's a cut and paste of the defintiions from the following sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_modernism 

http://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/gengloss/postm-body.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernism

 

I realized my definition of modernism was closer to what is termed American modernism...

American modernism like modernism in general is a trend of thought that affirms the power of human beings to create, improve, and reshape their environment, with the aid of scientific knowledge, technology and practical experimentation, and is thus in its essence both progressive and optimistic. 

Postmodernism: A general and wide-ranging term which is applied to literature, art, philosophy, architecture, fiction, and cultural and literary criticism, among others. Postmodernism is largely a reaction to the assumed certainty of scientific, or objective, efforts to explain reality. In essence, it stems from a recognition that reality is not simply mirrored in human understanding of it, but rather, is constructed as the mind tries to understand its own particular and personal reality. For this reason, postmodernism is highly skeptical of explanations which claim to be valid for all groups, cultures, traditions, or races, and instead focuses on the relative truths of each person. In the postmodern understanding, interpretation is everything; reality only comes into being through our interpretations of what the world means to us individually. Postmodernism relies on concrete experience over abstract principles, knowing always that the outcome of one's own experience will necessarily be fallible and relative, rather than certain and universal.

Postmodernism is "post" because it is denies the existence of any ultimate principles, and it lacks the optimism of there being a scientific, philosophical, or religious truth which will explain everything for everybody - a characterisitic of the so-called "modern" mind. The paradox of the postmodern position is that, in placing all principles under the scrutiny of its skepticism, it must realize that even its own principles are not beyond questioning. As the philospher Richard Tarnas states, postmodernism "cannot on its own principles ultimately justify itself any more than can the various metaphysical overviews against which the postmodern mind has defined itself."

 

I found the explanation of immediacy correlating to modernism and hypermediacy correlating to postmodernism to be quite accurate.  Of course, who am I to judge.  

I can just feel the modernistic optimism of man as photography develops and it seems an exact replica of reality.  And then the "African" comes in.  The African finds the paper on which this "reality" is depicted as stark and strange.  Definitely not the transparency and immediacy its designers were hoping for and had thought they found.

In response then comes postmodernity that says, "It's not possible!  Perfect Immediacy and transparency are not attainable the medium will always be present and noticeable"  And in this mindset the hypermedia thrives, as the opacity of the medium is obvious and next celebrated in newer forms of media.

This is actually a pretty old anime (2002) that talks about a person trapped in a VR sim. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hack_Sign

.hack//Sign is influenced by psychological and sociological subjects such as anxiety, escapism, and interpersonal relationships.^[6][7] The series focuses on a Wavemaster (magic user) named Tsukasa, a player character of a virtual-reality massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) called The World. Tsukasa wakes up to find himself in a dungeon in The World, but he has no recent recollections as he wonders where he is and how he got there. The situation gets worse when he discovers he is not able to log out and is trapped in the game. From then on, along with other players Tsukasa embarks on a quest to figure out the truth behind his abnormal situation.

Thought this would be interesting.  I think my paper may be about this.