Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 37, No. 457.
        Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
                      Hosted by DH-Cologne
                       www.dhhumanist.org
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        Date: 2024-02-20 08:54:17+00:00
        From: Charles Ess <c.m.ess@runbox.no>
        Subject: more than one way to be a digital humanist?

Dear Humanists,

I'm very pleased to pass along that as part of the Digital Humanities
HUMLab (Umeå University) Spring Share series, on March 26, 13:30-15:00
CET, I'll be presenting on "Building an 8-bit computer & engineering
phronēsis? Lessons in philosophy, phenomenology, and ethics of computing."

The presentation and discussion will be on Zoom and open; registration
is required:
<https://www.umu.se/en/events/building-an-8-bit-computer-and-engineering-
phronsis-_11896291/>

As something of introduction and overview -

My first goal in building the 8-bit computer designed and presented by
Ben Eater was to try to understand precisely how these devices actually
work at the level of logic gates, as implemented in transistors and
binary - and thereby from multiple, larger perspectives, starting with
the Pythagoreans' faith in number and numerical ratio as fundamental
reality, and continuing with histories, phenomenologies, and
philosophies of computing, including debates over what is
computationally tractable.

Last but not least, the lens of the myth of Theuth in the Phaedrus is
uncannily prescient here. Far from an early "moral panic" regarding the
introduction of writing as a new technology (as it is commonly
understood) - when interpreted within its larger, complex contexts (the
Phaedrus as an _inclusio_ story about growing up...), Ammon's contrasts
between genuine knowledge and deep memory vs. mere repetition of a text
whose background we don't understand and letters as the mere image
(εἴδωλον) of "the living and breathing word" of one who possesses such
knowledge and skill can be fruitfully mapped first of all onto what we
call a "Script Kiddie" in computer science (who only knows how to copy
and paste) - as well as onto AI / ML systems, including LLMs, as
"stochastic parrots (Bender et al, 2021). (It is also critical to note
that these contrasts are not entirely dualistic: rather, Phaedrus as a
Script Kiddie is on his way to becoming a philosopher, as a start.)

The project quickly became far more daunting than anything I’ve done in
quite some time. It was not enough to simply follow the instructions
delivered on 44 videos – the equivalent of starting out as a Script
Kiddie. As Ben warns at the outset, things don’t often work as they
should the first time around. I was thus forced into acquiring and
practicing the skills and knowledge needed, e.g., as a start, to read
circuit and chip pin-out diagrams in order to troubleshoot and then
resolve problems with an actual circuit on a breadboard.

But the lessons learned were proportionate to the time, effort, and
sometimes very great struggle - and far exceeded my original hopes and
aims. In the presentation I'll take up some of these, including:

* the virtues required for undertaking and succeeding with such a project

* phronesis as the key virtue of both reflective judgment and practical
wisdom as built up over time, exemplified in the kybernetes, the pilot
who knows how to correct when errors are made (hence the root of
cybernetics) - but now understood within such engineering contexts
vis-a-vis applied ethics

* the role of embodiment and embodied learning in the project vs. purely
theoretical understanding - specifically with regard to the
Church-Turing thesis and Turing-completeness as realized in building and
troubleshooting a flag register.

And the same for whatever we might mean by "digital," "analogue" and
their ostensible differences.

I hope this will be of some interest, or at least entertainment value
(writing is only for amusement, as we learn at the end of the Phaedrus...)

I'm very grateful indeed to Evelina Lillequist and Jon Svensson at
HUMLab for the invitation and opportunity to present and discuss in this
way. And many thanks to Humanist readers for passing this along to
students and colleagues who might also be interested.

Best,
- charles ess
Professor emeritus
Department of Media and Communication
University of Oslo

--
“Nihilism, of course, always threatens. But the romantic solution is to
keep meaning moving through space, to write as if one’s very life
depended on it — as it does.”
-- John David Black


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