The analogy of computing
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| Title: | The analogy of computing |
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| Authors: | Willard McCarty |
| Source: | Digital Scholarship in the Humanities. 39:242-257 |
| Publisher Information: | Oxford University Press (OUP), 2024. |
| Publication Year: | 2024 |
| Subject Terms: | 0601 history and archaeology, 06 humanities and the arts, 0603 philosophy, ethics and religion |
| Description: | The digital machine is analogical by design: with it, we construct models of phenomena that by definition of that term are necessarily partial approximations. For that reason, we learn more by conceiving of them as analogues rather than imperfect copies. As the foofaraw over AI would make clear to anyone who bothered to separate its strange wheat from the common chaff, analogy is key to the digital engine’s intellectual power, whether for good or for ill. (The one we must further, the other oppose, but in both cases, understand as fully as we are able.) Analogy is itself a Proteus, however, surfacing in different forms in different disciplines where the machine has found its applications. In the following essay, I chase it through a number of fields before returning to computing, with two examples of its application. I end with a brief note on worldmaking, which after all is what it’s all about, at whatever scale. |
| Document Type: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| ISSN: | 2055-768X 2055-7671 |
| DOI: | 10.1093/llc/fqad104 |
| Rights: | OUP Standard Publication Reuse |
| Accession Number: | edsair.doi...........d6c3cd220c61c46f6a27ae1bac5af69f |
| Database: | OpenAIRE |
Nájsť tento článok vo Web of Science | Abstract: | The digital machine is analogical by design: with it, we construct models of phenomena that by definition of that term are necessarily partial approximations. For that reason, we learn more by conceiving of them as analogues rather than imperfect copies. As the foofaraw over AI would make clear to anyone who bothered to separate its strange wheat from the common chaff, analogy is key to the digital engine’s intellectual power, whether for good or for ill. (The one we must further, the other oppose, but in both cases, understand as fully as we are able.) Analogy is itself a Proteus, however, surfacing in different forms in different disciplines where the machine has found its applications. In the following essay, I chase it through a number of fields before returning to computing, with two examples of its application. I end with a brief note on worldmaking, which after all is what it’s all about, at whatever scale. |
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| ISSN: | 2055768X 20557671 |
| DOI: | 10.1093/llc/fqad104 |