Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 15, No. 467.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
<http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
<http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>
Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 08:50:50 +0000
From: Charles Ess <cmess@lib.drury.edu>
Subject: minds and bodies
[The following exchange between Charles Ess and me I thought should be
circulated to members of Humanist, and happily Charles agrees. More on this
subject would be most welcome. --WM]
> From: Willard McCarty <w.mccarty@btinternet.com>
> Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 09:53:46 +0000
> To: Charles Ess <cmess@lib.drury.edu>
> >
> Charles,
>
> My first thought is to put your note out on Humanist, where this discussion
> should really be taking place. That is, I'd like our conversation to be
> overheard, and I would hope thereby to provoke others. Let me know what you
> think about this.
>
> I am grateful to be pointed to the Englebartian sense of mind-and-body in
> the GUI. Where I think the mind/body problem comes up is in the prevaling
> "impression of information" (as Geoffrey Nunberg brilliantly calls it)
> which seems all over the abstract discussions of the technology. The
> builders of systems (to extend a point made by Jerry McGann) are conducting
> a much more interesting and intelligent metatheoretical discourse in their
> acts of construction. Philosophy in the building of things. Or, as Ian
> Hacking says, in intervening in the world.
>
....
> Yours,
> W
>
> At 02:20 22/01/2002, you wrote:
>> Dear Willard:
I'm not sure I'd say that the mind/problem is central to _everything_ we do
- or if it is, it would be so in an equivocal way.
That is: what is wonderful about the Bardini text on Engelbart is that it
makes clear that the devices and general interface that you and I and most
computer users take for granted - i.e., the mouse, the GUI, even the
keyboard - emerge from Engelbart's commitment to a kind of symbiosis and
co-evolution between human and machine. Specifically: his interest in the
kinesthetic aspects of human knowing - that began, in some measure, with his
work as a radar technician in WWII - represented a _non-Cartesian_
epistemology, i.e., the "mind-and-body" notion that Barbara Becker so nicely
labels with the German neologism "BodySubject" (_LeibSubjekt_).
This approach was clearly and consciously in conflict with the then
prevailing approach, especially in AI, that basically took off from the
Cartesian view - i.e., a mind as divorced from body. Hence all the
attention to mind as a mechanism that could be - ostensibly, though now we
are considerably more modest on this point - reproduced in a computational
machine whose interface with the larger world ran from nonexistent (no
sensory inputs) to user-hostile: minimal read-outs and user inputs. The
thought was apparently that once an AI was so constituted, it would take off
down its own, putatively superior evolutionary road, leaving us puny humans
deservedly in the dust.
FWIW: while I enjoy tinkering with operating systems such as DOS, UNIX,
Linux, etc., that bypass the less demanding GUI-based elements to let the
user "speak" somewhat more directly to the machine - Engelbart's more
democratic notion of making computing machines accessible to the many is
admittedly closer to my own sense of the better possible uses of these
devices. That is: somewhat as Pirsig wrote convincingly in his famous _Zen
and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_, _contra_ the romantics who believe
we are more genuine and more genuinely in touch with "nature" when we strip
away our technologies - at least up to a point, it seems to me that these
technologies indeed help us expand (sometimes dramatically) our sense of
connection with a larger world. At least insofar as they are designed along
"Engelbartian" lines - i.e., precisely so as to minimize the sense of
"interface" between user and machine by devoting as much computational
resources as possible to help the machine "fit" the natural/cultural human
ways of knowing and acting in the world as embodied beings and kinesthetic
knowers. The more "user-friendly" the interface, the more of us will be
able to enjoy and take advantage of this symbiotic evolution.
In this latter direction, then, rather than assume a mind-body split/problem
- we seem to assume the identity of human beings as "mind-and-body" - one
capable of closely interacting with at least well-designed machines, and in
ways that might mutually enhance the development of each.
(Addendum: this raises an interesting counterpoint to Albert Borgmann's
important analysis of "focal activities" in his 1984 volume on _Technology
and the Character of Contemporary Life_. Such focal activities (gardening,
cooking and eating together, etc.) are offered as something of an antidote
to the ways in which technological devices offer increasing convenience -
but at the cost of greater internal complexity that quickly defeats the
ability of users to understand, much less manipulate or repair the device,
thus making us ever more dependent on technologies and their supporting
infrastructures. What Pirsig suggests - and Borgmann later exemplifies with
his discussion of the Altair 8800 computer as device so basic that the
user's required understanding of binary, logic switches, and programming
allowed for an experience he characterizes in terms of coherence, intimacy,
transparency, and comprehensibility [_Holding on to Reality_, 165) - is that
we can also experience something of the sense of skill mastery and
engagement with others and our environment _through_ technologies, not
always _against_ technologies. Similarly, our engagement as
"minds-and-bodies" with well-designed machines in what Engelbart
characterizes as symbiotic co-evolution would perhaps stand as an example of
a "technologically-mediated" focal activity?)
In light of this, I guess I would say that the mind-body problem perhaps
lurks behinds all we do with the delightful little beasties - but as we
pursue this second direction, it seems to presume that there _is_ no
(significant) mind-body problem: rather, we seek to address both
mind-and-body by taking up considerable amounts of computing resources to
help the machine interface with an embodied knower - ultimately, through all
of our senses. (Hence the excitement with multi-media?)
Thanks for providing me the occasion to tap out something I've mulling over
but haven't really worked up yet. Your thoughts and comments would be most
welcome!
>> Charles Ess
>> Director, Interdisciplinary Studies Center
>> Drury University
>> 900 N. Benton Ave. Voice: 417-873-7230
>> Springfield, MO 65802 USA FAX: 417-873-7435
>> Home page: http://www.drury.edu/ess/ess.html
>> Co-chair, CATaC 2002: http://www.it.murdoch.edu.au/~sudweeks/catac02/
>> "...to be non-violent, we must not wish for anything on this earth
which the
>> meanest and lowest of human beings cannot have." -- Gandhi
>>
>>> From: Willard McCarty <w.mccarty@btinternet.com>
>>> Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 06:46:08 +0000
>>> To: Charles Ess <cmess@lib.drury.edu>
>>> Subject: minds and bodies
>>>
>>> Charles,
>>>
>>> I hope you were knowingly cooperating with my editorial persona, whom I
>>> almost always allow to speak on a rather thin diet of knowledge but
copious
>>> amounts of boldness :-). Just the sort of thing I was hoping that such a
>>> message would provoke -- a reading list for the incompletely trained.
>>> Thanks very much indeed. Would you mind sending me an offprint when your
>>> article sees the light of day & the darkness of night?
>>>
>>> BTW, do you think (as I can only suspect) that the mind/body problem is
>>> central to everything we do with our beloved machines?
>>>
>>> Yours,
>>> W
>>>
>>>
>>> Dr Willard McCarty, Senior Lecturer,
>>> Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London,
>>> Strand, London WC2R 2LS, U.K.,
>>> +44 (0)20 7848-2784, ilex.cc.kcl.ac.uk/wlm/,
>>> willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk, w.mccarty@btinternet.com
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