BERNEVAL

Andrew Hodges Alan Turing: The Engima of Intelligence

The confusion and conflicts that underlay his apparently single-minded homosexual identity reflected the fact that the world did not allow a gay man to be ‘ordinary’ or indeed ‘authentic’; to live simply, without making a fuss; to be truly personal, without taking a public stand.

[…]

The yellow brick road divided, and there were no signposts provided to say which was the true and which the imitation path. But the uncertainty in Alan Turing’s life, the wavering between parts that struck observers most forcibly was seen not so much in terms of class, professional status, or gender, but in his oscillation between ‘adult’ and ‘child’ role in life.

[…]

It was an ambivalence with meanings at several different levels — an intellectual level in his refusal to be defined by his existing reputation, breaking instead into an entirely new sphere of work when approaching forty. And of course it held an erotic meaning, part of his response to the situation of homosexual men in general, in which the roles of seeker and sought were more fluid and diffuse than in heterosexual relationships. […] But beyond these meanings the boy-man quality of Alan Turing also reflected that most central question of his existence, one more special to himself. He had not wanted to ‘come of age’ at twenty-one, and as it transpired, he just avoided seeing the age of forty-two.

I like how this passage circles from the general to the particular: the exemplar becomes unique. And the road remains open on rereading to travel the other way, from example to principle.

And so for day 469
26.03.2008

Chandler Burr The Emperor of Scent: a story of perfume, obsession, and the last mystery of the senses — on the nature of algorithms (a wee bit of anthropomorphizing)

Unlike other mathematical formulas, algorithms need to be fed data to make them grow strong, just as a newborn child’s brain needs to be fed massive amounts of stimuli for its neural organization and development. The baby algorithm’s food […]

Implied in this figure is the notion that someone has “fathered” this thing. Forgotten is the important factor that the growing child also needs periods of diminished stimulation. A continual state of excitation is lethal. Starved by overdose.

And so for day 468
25.03.2008

The “Epilogue” to E.F. Schumacher. Small is Beautiful ends thus

Justice relates to truth, fortitude to goodness, and temperantia to beauty: while prudence, in a sense, comprises all three. The type of realism which behaves as if the good, the true, and the beautiful were too vague and subjective to be adopted as the highest aims of social or individual life, or were the automatic spin-off of the successful pursuit of wealth and power, has been aptly called ‘crackpot-realism’. Everywhere people ask: ‘What can I actually do?’ The answer is as simple as it is disconcerting: we can, each of us, work to put our own inner house in order. The guidance we need for this work cannot be found in science or technology, the value of which utterly depends on the ends they serve; but it can be found in the traditional wisdom of mankind.

The question arises as when and where to trust “traditional wisdom”. Schumacher’s vision calls for patience and practice.

Development does not start with goods; it starts with people and their education, organisation, and discipline. […] Education does not “jump”; it is a gradual process of great subtlety. Organisation does not “jump”; it must gradually evolve to fit changing circumstances. And much the same goes for discipline.

It is tempting to “jump” between these excerpts and map justice and truth to education, fortitude and goodness to organisation, temperance and beauty to discipline. And prudence to the dexterity of jumping.

And so for day 464
21.03.2008

Keith W. Faulkner. Deleuze and the three syntheses of time.

He argues

Words become symbols; language is symbolic: although words are not things, and things are not words, the principle of reality applies to them both as if words enjoy the same reality as things.

and this is how the argument is set up

How can language acquire a “reality” if it remains outside the realm of objects? As we have seen, the indication of reality accompanies a psychical discharge. While eating, the mouth and the stomach produce a discharge signaling the reality of food; while speaking, a physical discharge occurs in the mouth signaling the reality of language. In this process, as in the process of hysterical symbol-formation, the symbol completely replaces the thing.

The question arises that if words can be considered to be like things, how can things be like words? The key may be in approaching words and things as “events.”

One need not revert to a theory of signatures or a reification of symbols, one can sense the pressure of a thing upon its environment much as one can sense the energy of words.

And so for day 463
20.03.2008

See also day 65