Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 40, No. 70.
Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
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[1] From: Öyvind Eide <oeide@uni-koeln.de>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 40.67: repetition's point? (83)
[2] From: Tim Smithers <tim.smithers@cantab.net>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 40.68: repetition's point . . . and bluntness . . . (51)
[3] From: Ken Friedman <ken.friedman.sheji@icloud.com>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 40.67: repetition's point? (29)
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2026-06-25 10:25:24+00:00
From: Öyvind Eide <oeide@uni-koeln.de>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 40.67: repetition's point?
Dear Willard,
at least in music (and possibly in other domains) repetition with and without
variation are quite different.
Music played on instruments by humans necessarily have some variation, even if
the musicians try hard to keep the repetition identical.
Some types of electronic music use repetition cycles that are identical.
To me, that creates a fundamental different emotional experience rather than one
different in degree. One is not more intense than the other, but the intensity
is different. One is not better than the other, by the concept of "good" is
different.
All the best,
Øyvind
--
Prof. Dr. Øyvind Eide
Institut für Digital Humanities — Historisch-Kulturwissenschaftliche
Informationsverarbeitung
Universität zu Köln
Albertus-Magnus-Platz
D-50931 Köln
Büro: Universitätsstraße 22, Raum 1.02 (1 OG)
URL: http://idh.uni-koeln.de/
fon: +49.221.470.1752 (Vorzimmer .4430)
> Am 22.06.2026 um 10:29 schrieb Humanist <humanist@dhhumanist.org>:
>
>
> Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 40, No. 67.
> Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
> Hosted by DH-Cologne
> www.dhhumanist.org
> Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org
>
>
>
>
> Date: 2026-06-22 08:06:10+00:00
> From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty@mccarty.org.uk>
> Subject: repetition
>
> Malcolm Bull, writing in a 1995 review of Roberto Calasso's The Ruin of
> Kasch (LRB 17.2), notes this author's anatomy of repetition:
>
> "The crucial question is whether ... [repetition of ideas] reinforces or
> diffuses their significance. Calasso distinguishes between two types of
> repetition: that which ‘converges toward a single meaning...’, and that
> which eventually ‘makes it lose all meaning and leaves it at our feet
> like the opaque shell of a sound’."
>
> In another piece from the London Review of Books (I cannot find it), its
> author asks if repeating something again and again may be the only way
> to get to its truth. Then there's Philip Glass, who remarked somewhere--
> I think in his memoir, Words Without Music--that those who listen closely
> will hear the slight variations in his repeated musical phrases, and so get
> what he is doing.
>
> Our smart machine is of course all about iteration, endless iteration.
> Might there be an analogous point to be made about paying attention to
> the odd slips, the anomalies (a.k.a. 'hallucinations'? Of course the machine
> is up to what its programming tells it to be up to. But as it gets more and
> more human discourse to iterate, might not those anomalies reward us with
> a glimpse of a different kind of intelligence?
>
> And then there's biological repetition...
>
> Who, by the way, writes most insightfully about repetition?
>
> Comments?
>
> WM
>
> --
> Willard McCarty,
> Professor em., King's College London;
> www.mccarty.org.uk
--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2026-06-24 06:59:23+00:00
From: Tim Smithers <tim.smithers@cantab.net>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 40.68: repetition's point . . . and bluntness . . .
Yes, Jim. That's special.
We can't repeat our first kiss with someone, but we can have
several first kisses, each with a different person. But
that's not repetition, that's several first kisses.
We can't [yet] program computers to know, understand, and to
feel, remember, and appreciate such things as special. To a
computer program all "kisses" are just data; data which
doesn't, and can't contain any human specialnesses.
As you do, we should all remember this difference, and keep
reminding those who seem to forgot it, or who chose to pretend
that making machines in our image makes them the same as us.
This what "AI" means today, an "Artificial Image." It's an
ancient trick.
-- Tim
> On 23 Jun 2026, at 07:49, Humanist <humanist@dhhumanist.org> wrote:
>
>
> Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 40, No. 68.
> Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
> Hosted by DH-Cologne
> www.dhhumanist.org
> Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org
>
<snip>
>
> --[2]------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Date: 2026-06-22 17:15:14+00:00
> From: James Rovira <jamesrovira@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Humanist] 40.67: repetition's point?
>
> I think it's possible that machine repetition when working from human
> corpora can give us insight into human intelligence, because it is
> processing human words, but not into its own, because it has none in any
> sense comparable to human being.
>
> Kierkegaard in *Repetition *writes well about repetition, but I don't think
> he goes in a direction productive to understanding this topic. Repetition
> as a subjective experience within time is impossible: you can't repeat your
> first kiss or the first time you heard that song.
>
> Jim R
>
<snip>
--[3]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2026-06-23 12:28:14+00:00
From: Ken Friedman <ken.friedman.sheji@icloud.com>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 40.67: repetition's point?
Dear Willard,
Søren Kierkegaard wrote an entire book about repetition. There are three English
translations, all excellent.
Kierkegaard, Søren 1946 Repetition. An Essay in Experimental Psychology.
Translated with Introduction and Notes by Walter Lowrie. Princeton, New Jersey:
Princeton University Press.
Kierkegaard, Søren 1983 Fear and Trembling [and] Repetition. Edited and
Translated with Introduction and Notes by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong.
Kierkegaard’s Writings, Volume 6. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University
Press.
Kierkegaard, Søren 2009 Repetition and Philosophical Crumbs. Translated by M. G.
Piety with an introduction by Edward F. Mooney. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
In addition, there are two works of commentary and reflection that focus on
Kierkegaard’s Repetition:
Eriksen, Niels Nymann 2000 Kierkegaard's Category of Repetition. A
Reconstruction. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Tsakiri, Vasiliki 2006 Kierkegaard. Anxiety, Repetition and Contemporaneity.
London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Yours,
Ken
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