Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 36, No. 255.
Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
Hosted by DH-Cologne
www.dhhumanist.org
Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org
Date: 2022-11-11 12:25:21+00:00
From: Bill Pascoe <bill.pascoe@unimelb.edu.au>
Subject: Re: [EXT] [Humanist] 36.251: coexistence in the same cognitive entity
It's odd that computers and information technology are portrayed, perceived,
experienced, described as distinctly unhuman. We get taught growing up that our
scientific name is 'Homo Sapiens' which means 'Wise Man' and that two of the
most important defining characteristics of this wisdom, that differentiate us
from other biological things, is that we are tool users (machines), and that we
use language (information technology). A computer is a symbol processing
machine. What could be more human than a computer?
We have always been HomoLogatus.
________________________________
From: Humanist <humanist@dhhumanist.org>
Sent: Friday, 11 November 2022 5:00 PM
To: Bill Pascoe <bill.pascoe@unimelb.edu.au>
Subject: [EXT] [Humanist] 36.251: coexistence in the same cognitive entity
External email: Please exercise caution
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 36, No. 251.
Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
Hosted by DH-Cologne
http://www.dhhumanist.org
Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org
Date: 2022-11-10 06:43:00+00:00
From: Salvo Spina <salvatore.spina@unict.it>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 36.241: unlimited growth in 'knowledge'
production
Dear Willard,
I want to state an opinion on this topic. A few months ago, I published a
handbook on Digital History where I proposed my idea about the necessary
participation of humanists in the realisation of "biotechnocenosis". By this
term, I denote a status where humans and machines coexist as parts of the same
cognitive entity.
We should no longer speak about "opportunities" that are opened and others that
are lost, but instead about Knowledge created through processing that reports to
a new human, the HomoLogatus.
We have to overcome the duality of "human-machine".
Scholars are "HomoLogatus", i.e., who infer analogically but analyse with a
digital mind, thanks to the Machine and its computable language. For instance,
next-generation historians will live in an interconnected-symbiotically Reality
where humans and technological tools have the same role in discovering the Past.
Waiting for You
Regards
Salvo Spina
Salvatore Spina (Ph.D.)
Assegnista di Ricerca | Dipartimento di Scienze Umanistiche
Università degli Studi di Catania
__________________________________
Email: salvatore.spina@unict.it
Mobile: (+39) 340.7663215
Skype: salvatore.spina@me.com
Web: http://www.salvatorespina.com
On 6 Nov 2022, 08:59 +0100, Humanist <humanist@dhhumanist.org>, wrote:
>
> Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 36, No. 241.
> Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
> Hosted by DH-Cologne
> http://www.dhhumanist.org
> Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org
>
>
>
>
> Date: 2022-11-05 08:02:04+00:00
> From: maurizio lana <maurizio.lana@uniupo.it>
> Subject: Re: [Humanist] 36.228: the general-purpose machine and unlimited
growth
>
> dear Willard,
>
> i think that there is another question lying in the first part of your
> message, a question that surfaces in these fragments:
> "'What can be automated?'"
> "this machine was opening up seemingly endless possibilities"
> "the delusion of unlimited possibilities itself"
> "the problem of unlimited growth"
>
> the question is that of the production of text through the use of
> systems of AI.
> from
> GPT-3. 2020. «A Robot Wrote This Entire Article. Are You Scared yet,
> Human?» /The Guardian/, 8 September 2020.
> http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/08/robot-wrote-this-article-
> gpt-3.
> to
> Bertram, Lillian-Yvonne. 2019. /Travesty Generator/. Blacksburg, VA:
> Noemi Press.
> to
> Aalho, Jukka, e GPT-3. 2021. /Aum Golly: Poems on Humanity by an
> Artificial Intelligence/. Amazon Digital Services
>
> we see that with computing tools one can produce "a nastro", i would say
> with an italian slang expression, one can uninterruptedly produce texts
> after texts after texts and cherry-pick the most appealing one.
> or one can enhance its ability to produce meaningful text in the context
> of scientific publication by using an AI software to foster its
> production times and rhythm: see
> Thunström, Almira Osmanovic. 2022. «We Asked GPT-3 to Write an Academic
> Paper about Itself - Then We Tried to Get It Published». Scientific
> American, giugno 2022.
> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/we-asked-gpt-3-to-write-an-
academic-
> paper-about-itself-then-we-tried-to-get-it-published/
> and this would obviously undermine the whole system of Impact Factor
>
> we may assist to (we may have to face?) a doped unrestricted growth of
> scientific publications - and who knows what would think of it Vannevar
> Bush who in 1945 was saying "Publication has been extended far beyond
> our present ability to make real use of the record".
>
> Maurizio
>
>
>
> Il 02/11/22 07:38, Humanist ha scritto:
> > In "Computer science and education" (1969), pioneer computer scientist
> > George Forsythe observed that "computing is rapidly invading almost
> > every aspect of our intellectual and technological life." He then went
> > on to proclaim that, "Indeed, the question 'What can be automated?' is
> > one of the most inspiring philosophical and practical questions of
> > contemporary civilization." (Information Processing 68, Amsterdam, p.
> > 1025) Newspaper evidence suggests that people were still being surprised
> > by the idea for some time afterwards. Two aspects of Forsythe's
> > statement interest me. First is the irony that as this machine was
> > opening up seemingly endless possibilities, it was at the same time
> > closing down others as more and more people accepted the notion that
> > what couldn't be computed wasn't terribly important and would after a
> > time be accommodated by what Herbert Simon called 'satisficing'. The
> > second is the delusion of unlimited possibilities itself, of the
> > unlimited 'growth' that is now causing us to reach "the limit situation"
> > (Lagerkvist 2022).
> >
> > Some days or weeks ago, Jerome McGann pointed to a limitation of
> > Lagerkvist's fine book, that it doesn't say much at all in answer to
> > Lenin's useful question, "What is to be done?" John Lanchester's novel
> > The Wall (2018) gives us a version of a common reaction to that
> > question. But I want to pose a different version of the problem of
> > unlimited growth, namely of data--and let me limit this to useful
> > scholarly data--and furthermore to the kind one uses by reading it
> > rather than applying statistical tests.
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> s'il n'y a même plus l'humour pour nous alléger
> comment lutter
> prohom, comment lutter
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Maurizio Lana
> Università del Piemonte Orientale
> Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici
> Piazza Roma 36 - 13100 Vercelli
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