Digalog:

geometric electric vision

Our best machines are made of sunshine; they are all light and clean because they are nothing but signals, electromagnetic waves, a section of a spectrum, and these machines are eminently portable, mobile -- a matter of immense human pain in Detroit and Singapore. People are nowhere near so fluid, being both material and opaque. Cyborgs are ether, quintessence.[1]


Digital systems begin with the finger. A tremendous conceptual leap separates a finger from an abstract quantity. This metaphoric achievement first experienced in counting is the backbone of every digital system. Within this representational framework a fascinating variety of digital systems have been developed and discovered. The range stretches from genetics to binary, hieroglyphs to dice. In general, we tend to differentiate digital systems from analogue ones: waves are analogue, particles are digital. Analog representations are continuous and infinite. The slide rule, for example, represents a range of numbers as precise as our eyes ability to discern them. Digital representations are discrete and contained. The beads of an abacus are either up or down and nowhere in-between. Analog accuracy is usually contrasted with digital robustness. Analogue systems are more subject to noise. Digital ones, by abstracting wide ranges of values into discrete units, are more insulated from it. While it is conceptually convenient to contrast digital with analog, in practice the two are intertwined. Digital systems tend to abstract analog values and assemble themselves to represent analogue ideas. The logical ‘1’ of a microprocessor is derived from a range of analog voltages, and is most likely put to any number of analogue tasks like sound or color representation.

Each digital system has an innate intelligence and aesthetics. For example, Arabic numerals are far more intelligent than Roman numerals in their positional standardization of the compound mathematical operations of division and multiplication. The intelligence of digital systems dovetails with their optimization, and efficiency. Similarly, one might say Morse code is more beautiful than Braille, because of its asymmetric and intuitive derivations as compared with the purely sequential bumps of Braille. The beauty of digital systems is involved in their metaphoric potential, their intuition, and their onomatopoetics.



Table 1 the digital spread

“Aesthetic beauty is the isomorphic correspondence between what is said and how it is said.” [2] The equality (isos) of what (content, semantics) and how (form, syntax) is rare. We see it in only the finest digital representations. It is syntax that implies semantics. It is form indistinguishable from content. It is in the most complex character of Chinese: the 64-stroke “verbose.” It is in the single finger's portrait as number ‘1’ of the Arabic numerals. It is in the somatic and random recombination of our DNA responsible for the extreme diversity of our immune cell repertoires. It is in “our best machines” run on sunshine processing sunshine displaying sunshine.


Figure 1 Verbose in Mandarin Chinese

Abstractions are hybrids. The abstraction of steel is based on the alchemy of iron and carbon. Abstract art is a mixture of representation and conception. The digital abstraction has dialectic energy at every level. Attractive and repulsive electricity powers and processes, stores and retrieves our data. Boolean true false logic governs artificial intelligence. Doping silicon by negative or positive isotopes forms the transistor. Abstraction accommodates speed, strength, and information. Speed is feet abstracted into wheels, strength is sand abstracted into glass or cement, and information is knowledge abstracted into electric ones and zeroes.[3] The modular energy of abstract hybrids yields more abstraction- more speed, more strength, and more information. Amidst these vicious spirals we might differentiate between the mythological hybrids of the Chimera and the Unicorn. The Chimera is a terrible monster, serpentine and streamlined. The Unicorn is noble, mysterious, beautiful, and fierce. Unicorn code respects the poetic mystery of the electron that animates it; the Chimera is powerful but ignorant.


(Figures 2 and 3 Chimera ^ and Unicorn ^)

The electron is capable of improvisation. The pattern projected by electromagnetic radiation (light) passing through a slit can be predicted by classical physics. Likewise, light passing through two slits will reveal an interference pattern caused by the two waves radiating from each slit bouncing off of each other.




(Figures 4, 5, and 6 Light emanating from 1 point vs. 2 points)

However, classical physics cannot predict or understand why a single electron or photon shone through two slits will behave as though it is interfering with itself. To cope with this, modern physicists have developed the notion of the quanta: the part particle, part wave unit at the basis of all matter. However, even the quantum mechanic cannot predict the order the electrons or photons will arrive. It is unpredictable.


(Figure 7 electrons randomly accumulate in an interference pattern when fired one by one)

Electricity in the university and on the street is misunderstood as water. We speak of the flow of electricity, its current or pressure. These water-words betray the polar and data-directed nature of the electron. Electricity is not water. It does not flow, it happens. “Current” running from one end of a wire to the other brings no new physical material. A battery does not weigh less when it has been discharged. The transistor is not a faucet- it is a lever and a gate. Electricity is information. On the most basic level it is information about the density of a charge, balancing alignments, distance from equilibrium. It is a whispered suggestion from a minute electron to its nearest neighbors. The more correct- more beautiful phrase for voltage is potential difference. Voltage is a measure of change with information. We can speak of education as a human voltage. We might mention marketing as a corporate voltage. In short, computation is the rapid manipulation by voltage of the whispered intentions of electrons across the transistor. The nature of electricity resists the monolithic and static logic we have built upon it. Sequential and streamlined computation forces the dancing electron to sit still. It divorces form from content. As such, it is a digitally ugly process.

One example of digital beauty is the rolling die. We have been using them for over 5000 years for a reason! While there are many ways to order 1 - 6 digits, the arrangement so familiar to us has endured because of its simple elegance, and its intelligent Gestalt. The diagonal orientation of 3ree dots is one of many possible representations for 3, but it is the best at expressing '3ness'. ‘3’ is an odd asymmetry when compared with the balanced 2 and the holistic 1. The diagonal embodies this dynamic through its asymmetrical weight shift across the face of the die.


(Figure 8 3ree)

In fact, each of the faces of a die reads as a distinct and unique pattern, which eloquently sums up the number it represents. The ‘5’-dot arrangement, for example, reads as an X. 5 is half of 10, which in the decimal language of fingers is infused with a middling tension just like the centripetal X. I will describe this sort of relationship as onomatopoetic, from the Greek ????? (onoma, = "name") and ????? (poie?, = "I make" or "I do"): it is named as it does.


(Figure 9 Dice Gestalts)

On the opposite end of the digital spectrum stand the intricate markings of the approximately 47,035+ Chinese characters. These logographs like Egyptian hieroglyphics and Sumerian Cuneiform use a huge number of digits to signify language. Many in the West believe the Chinese characters are all ideograms- direct depictions of the idea they symbolize- however, these direct one dimensional correspondences make up only a small fraction of the Chinese dictionary. The workhorse of the Chinese language is the radical phonetic compound, a combined character that has one component indicating meaning and another signifying pronunciation. This dual signification eases the learning and interpretation processes by giving the student two different paths to the lingual information, and lowers the threshold for literacy. Only 3,000 characters are needed for basic literacy and highly educated people know 4,000- 5,000 characters. This gives the Chinese language a tremendous surplus of signs. Westerners often baulk at this abundance but it gives Chinese a flexibility our relatively streamlined alphabet could never afford. These excess characters can come back into use to accommodate various dialects and acquire new meaning. They are also used for local and personal communication that allows the billion plus native Chinese speakers to find their own individual niche in their language. Furthermore they contain the history of a culture: the appropriation of their characters by the Japanese, their imposition upon the Vietnamese, the variety of noodles, and the myths of dragons. This built-in memory is a rare and precious attribute of any system. It enables evolution and mutation. This feature may lead to short-term confusion but it enhances long-term viability as best exemplified by DNA. The sheer quantity of Chinese characters lends the language analogue characteristics. Subject to local noise and mutation, Chinese cannot be read like English: as a friend from Hong Kong described it: “you must feel the words not see them.”

While Chinese achieves dynamism through it's syllabic juxtapositions and its sheer size, English's relatively terse alphabet must rely on inflection. Besides the crossword and the palindrome English is a sequential linear language. However, through the mutations of inflection and the historical imprint of etymology English accommodates mutation and evolution in a way that defies and enriches it's one-dimensional structure. Apophony, like all inflections, morphs words with new meanings. 'Sing' becomes 'sang' becomes 'song' becomes 'sung'. Apophony tags a word with new information by mutating it. The general concept of singing is embellished to answer all sorts of questions: when, what, who? This textured meaning allows for potentials realized in lyric and letter and joke and memo. The internal morphology of inflection is a powerful pattern for many kinds of evolution. The sophistication and breadth of our adaptive immune system, its evolutionary success, is a direct result of a similarly constructed mutation.

The body faces a daunting challenge. Microbes can penetrate us anywhere along our skin, respiratory or digestive tracts. Microbes can take myriad different molecular forms and are constantly mutating: antibodies to last year's flu may be obsolete next winter. Unlike innate immunity whose cells indiscriminately fight all intruders, our adaptive immune system mounts a specifically tailored response to each threat it encounters. The molecules that trigger the reaction are called antigens (for antibody generating) and can be any kind of foreign substance including toxins, bacterial or viral cell parts, pollen, or in the case of autoimmune disorders even our own cell surface particles. To mount a specific attack antigen receptors of our B and T cells must be able to distinguish between billions of molecular structures and attach to only one distinct type of antigen. The mechanics of this process are awe-inspiring and complex, but especially relevant to our discussion is the way this molecular variety is achieved. “If every possible receptor were encoded by one gene, a large fraction of the genome would be devoted to coding for antigen receptors only. This is obviously unreasonable.

In fact, the immune system has developed mechanisms for generating extremely diverse repertoires of B and T [cells] and the generation of diverse receptors is intimately linked to the process of lymphocyte [immune cell] maturation.”[4] Just as apophony creates precision (when, what, who) through internal mutation, lymphocyte maturation creates the breathtaking precision of antigen receptors though the artful development of lymphocytes. Innocent stem cells in creamy white bone marrow become dedicated warriors in the bloodstream. The most creative step in this journey is the somatic recombination of the receptor code that will trigger the battle. As B and T cells develop to maturity the DNA that encodes their antigen receptors is spliced and remixed creating a vast bounty of novel molecular structures. Spitting in the face of Watson and Crick’s ‘Central Dogma‘ of genetics enzymes randomly delete, add, and rearrange the DNA responsible for antigen receptors. Identical twins, it turns out, do not have the same DNA! Like everyone, their genomes have been randomly hyper-mutated to create the diverse defenders we call B and T cells or lymphocytes. The genes that describe the proteins that come into direct contact with antigen are most subject to mutation, as it is those proteins that must express a assiduously shaped specificity for just one of the infinitely various molecular forms of antigens. This process does not just create vast diversity for the individual. The population as a whole expresses a humongous array of antigen receptors (far greater than each individual). This ensures that at least some members of the tribe will be able to resist even the most lethal microbes. While random, somatic recombination is highly intelligent. In addition to the myriad receptors created, the mutations in somatic recombination produce genes “that cannot code for proteins and are, therefore, useless. This is the price the immune system pays for tremendous diversity.” [5] Somatic recombination also creates receptors that recognize self-antigens and could potentially cause autoimmune diseases. In direct response to these problems apoptosis (programmed cell death) plays a key role in killing off those cells with useless or harmful proteins. The biologic preference for a mutated abundance finds its opposite in the computer scientist’s pursuit of streamlined efficiency. The natural preference for expansion and variety can also be seen in linguistics.

Through dialects and slang languages radiate outward from the tower of Babel. As a result of this radiation, English words carry a history beyond their meaning. For example, the etymology of the word bless reveals its link to the Germanic word for blood, harking back to a time of pagan sacrifices, where to be blessed required being marked with blood. When the scientist reaches for Greek out of a shortage of signs she summons more than a new character. From the physicists' ohm ?, to the mathematicians' pi ?, Greek brings with it the reasoned balance of antiquity- just what the scientist seeks. The written relics of forgotten times add dimension to words. Words have meaning as well as a cultural residue. This cultural residue makes poetry possible by giving words a weight that goes beyond their semantics.

Morse Code with breathtaking concision manages to capture the semantic and, incredibly, even some of the semiotic content of English. A glance at the Morse dictionary reveals its efficient design. The 'e' the most common letter in the English language is assigned the single dot, the simplest and fastest symbol to send. We could expect as much from any engineer. However, what sets Morse code apart and what distinguishes Samuel Morse as an information artist and not just an engineer is his language’s onomatopoetics. The best example is the 'Q' whose dash dash dot dash ( _ _ . _ ) representation mirrors the English letter's shape and essence. The triple lines of the O ( _ _ _ ) are asymmetrically pierced by the dot, just as the English Queue's oblique extension disturbs the wholeness of its oval base. Another example is the 'n' = ( _ .) and 'm' ( _ _ ) representations. The graphical extension of the 'n' by 'm' is expressed through the dot stretching into a dash. Furthermore, the single arc of the 'n' with its raised right shoulder is imbalanced just like the dash dot, while the stable double arc of the 'm' is re-visualized in the symmetric dash dash. Samuel Morse- a photographer and painter- deeply understood “the isomorphic correspondence of what and how.”[6] With some of the crudest forms (dots and dashes) Morse fashioned isomorphic metaphors for the vastly more varied contents of our alphabet. Despite its semiotic virtuosity Morse code is severely handicapped as a mode of representation by its one-to-one correspondence with the English alphabet. It is tempting to describe Morse code as binary because of its dot dash syntax, however, as John Cage reminds us silence is as meaningful as sound. The silences in Morse code are pauses between letters, words, sentences and paragraphs. As such it is a digital system with 6 digits.

The true binary system, the one now poised to eclipse every other digital or analog representation ever known, is built upon the bit. High current or voltage abstracted as 1 and low current or voltage abstracted as 0 forms the “binary digit” abbreviated as the bit. The bit fashions meaning and memory from the polar nature of the electron. This is a natural outgrowth of the informational nature of electricity. The work of the electrical engineer and the computer scientist is insulation, taxonomy, and division. The electrical engineer first talks of the Lump Matter Discipline dividing the continuous world into discrete nameable units with specific characteristics like the resistor and capacitor. Likewise, the computer scientist creates the Abstract Data Type insulating the storage and implementation of data from their operations and description. These are Chimera abstractions creating powerful monsters whose sum contains none of the history or mutability of the parts.

The worst thing about technology is how well it works. We misunderstand the error as a problem and not an opportunity. This is not the users fault. Computer Science professors often preface their classes with cautionary tales about the difficulty of the discipline and the high rate of failure amongst students. It is curious and disappointing that year after year of delivering these speeches our professors have not reconsidered their methods or their language. Most people fail computer science because computer science is failing.

Today’s computer is the physical manifestation of Goddfried Leibniz’s 300 year old conception.[7] The computer he dreamt of was made of gears and marbles. It was mechanical and programmable. It was binary. The marbles were used just like our microprocessors transistors, if they covered a slot the slot represented 1 otherwise it meant 0. The machine worked by exploiting addition as the fundamental arithmetical operation.


(Figure 10 Leibniz’s Computer)

Leibniz knew subtraction is just addition of negative numbers, multiplication is just compound addition, division is compound subtraction, exponentiation is compound multiplication, logarithms are compound division—it all can be reduced to addition![8] :

3 + 6 = 9.
9 – 6 = 3 = 9 + (-6).
3 * 6 = 18 = 6 + 6 + 6.
6 / 3 = 2 because 0 = 6 + (-2) + (-2) + (-2).
6^3 = 216 = 6 * 6 * 6 = 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 6.
log base(6) 216 = 3 because (((216 / 6) / 6) / 6) = 1 because 0 = 216 + (((-6) + (-6) + (-6) + (-6) + (-6) + (-6)) + ((-6) + (-6) + (-6) + (-6) + (-6) + (-6)) + ((-6) + (-6) + (-6) + (-6) + (-6) + (-6))).


It may come as a surprise to the video editor or the blogger, that the box they depend on for their livelihood is only capable of addition. It is perhaps the greatest exploit of applied mathematics that the multifunctional and ubiquitous computer is capable of only the simplest arithmetical operation. There is a limit, however, to this conceit. Inherently finite and reductive, processors as we know them stagger and fumble at the true weight of our infinite in all directions world. One might think that infinity is only a problem at the edges. Indeed it is at the edges where Alan Turing, and Kurt Gödel showed computability to break down. To paraphrase Bertrand Russell’s paradox: In Seville all men must either shave themselves or be shaved by the barber of Seville. Does the barber of Seville shave himself? If he does shave himself then he shaves himself AND is shaved by the barber of Seville. If he doesn’t then he is not shaving himself OR being shaved by the barber of Seville. The position is untenable. Gödel expanded upon this thinking to show that mathematics will not obey any rigid logical framework and that within any system there are always things that are true but can only be proved by appealing outside the system. Turing applied these thoughts to Computer Science through his halting dilemma. He proposed to write a program to check whether all possible inputs to a given program would run forever or halt. Turing proved that no such checking program could be written. This is because we may have to wait forever for a program to finish in which case it is impossible to say whether it finishes or not. As John Maynard Keynes said, “In the long run we are all dead.”[9]

Infinity is not just a problem at the edges. Unlike integers who punctuate the real number line at regular intervals, rational and irrational numbers are dense in the reals: irrationality is dense in reality. The set of all integers is a collection of points along the number line; the set of all rational numbers is an unbroken line along the real numbers. Between any two real numbers is an infinitude of other reals.[10] Infinity confronts us everywhere. Likewise, as Gödel showed, and Pythagoras feared, numbers can be irrational wily creatures. The persistence of ? in our universe, and the ignorance of it in our computers is cause for great concern.

In questions regarding spheres, rotation, or circumferences ? is a regular. However she is most eloquently described in the special case of Euler’s identity:


(Figure 11 Geometric Interpretation of Euler Identity: e^i ? = cos(?) + sin(?) = e^i ? = -1 + 0 )

Here we see the coherence and closeness of the universe’s favorite numbers. The irrational e and ? and the imaginary i are bound to the stable pillars of 1 and 0. There is something about ?, which craves the calm of zero, the unity of 1. Likewise there is an urge within 1 and zero for the whimsy and imagination i. The universe shows no preference for whole numbers over irrational or imaginary ones, rather they are mutually constructed, and integral to the fabric of our world. Computers miss this coherence.

Infinity is varied. It is not a static concept at the limits of a system, but an enigmatic reality that pervades systems. The German mathematician Georg Cantor constructed a wonderful proof illustrating the variety of infinity. A proof by contradiction he asks us to imagine an infinite list containing all the real numbers, our old friends ? and e and countless others. He then constructs a number that cannot be in this list by diagonally cutting through his list and choosing each digit so that it is different from the number in the diagonal. The resulting number is thus different from every number in the list in at least the spot where it meets it on the diagonal and therefore is not on the list. The real numbers cannot be counted. Hence, there are more numbers between 1 and 0 than there are whole numbers although both sets are infinite. There are levels of infinity.


(Figure 12 Cantor Diagonilization)

Cantor also created a recursive set which developed his insight into the infinite. The two-dimensional version illustrated below is called a Sierpinski carpet. (See Figure 7) The square is divided into 9 squares and the middle one removed. The process is repeated recursively for each of the 8 remaining squares. If we repeat the process indefinitely we can calculate that the area removed equals the area of the full square we started with even though the carpet is clearly not empty. Just as the dictionary does not sum up a language, area does not sum up a square.


(Figure 13 The Sierpinksi Carpet 2-dimesional visualization of the Cantor Set)

We learn there is something left after everything is removed. It is a study in hope for the hopeless. Contrapostively, the carpets affirm what Bob Dylan sings: “When you think you've lost everything, you find out you can always lose a little more.”[11] Like Gödel’s incompleteness or even Heisenberg’s uncertainty these wonderful carpets are a testament to the inherently open and unpredictable nature of our world. No computer can ever seek comfort upon a Sierpinski carpet. A digital understanding of dimension denies the carpet and the whole wonderful family of shapes to which they belong: fractals. A fractal has fractional dimension. The Sierpinski carpet is more than a line (1d) but less than a plane (2d). The tremendous insight that dimension can be fractional provides a framework for previously bewildering domains. The distribution of galaxies, the movement of the stock market, the lengths of coastlines, the branching of lung tissue, the surface area of capillaries, even the Brownian movement of electrons in conducting wire can all be modeled as fractals.[12]

Fractals offer insight into the danger of digitization. With a merely digital or discrete understanding of dimension we are stuck between a rock and a hard place. For one we might just give up describing some phenomenon like stock market gyrations because no mathematical model can account for the data. Or worse we can label what we don’t understand as “noise” and formulate a model that ignores the true nature of our study. Either way computers live in a closed system where there is no space between a line and plane. We live in an open system full of potential that defies any logical ordering we might attempt to impose; air enough between a line and a plane to unfurl a Swiss-cheesy carpet!

We must remember that Cantor was driven to suicide, and that the mathematical establishment derided Mandelbrot’s fractals. With a similar fear and trembling we find women, people of color, and people of means, fleeing engineering. Why? We can trace one answer back to the newsletters of the young General Electric at the turn of this century. Divorcing the engineer from the world, they sought to define the profession as the mastery of esoteric details (in particular the specifications of G.E. made dynamos, lights and other equipment.)[13] A gaping disconnect gradually developed throughout the twentieth century. We are now quite familiar with the dehumanized "geek" who relishes the specifications and idiosyncrasies of the systems developed by other "geeks" increasingly lacking integrated or intuitive meaning.

There is something violent about a digit. The fist is extended through ballistics as nuclear warfare. Indeed the first modern computers were busy calculating the physics behind fission. Likewise, the development of the Internet by the military was in direct reaction to the fear of nuclear attack on the Pentagon disabling a centralized command and potentially paralyzing the U.S.A's defenses. In trepidation DARPA created the Internet allowing for a decentralized control of military operations invulnerable to any single nuclear attack. One of the exquisite minds unfortunately employed by these murderous initiatives was John Von Neumann. Von Neumann's insight that code can be treated just the same as data has been stifling in its brilliance. Virtually every computer in production relies on a Von Neumann architecture. However, we have neglected more difficult terrain, in part because the ground he cleared was so fertile. A half-century after his death perhaps it is time to reconsider.

Most programming languages are built to exploit a Von Neumann architecture. From the archaic Fortran to the supercomputer’s C++ these languages are utterly unonomatopoetic. Their syntax is alien to their semantics. Lisp, the second oldest programming language still in use, employs a more general approach. Ideal for artificial intelligence Lisp is described as a homoiconic language. Homoiconic languages represent programs the same way they understand data. (This is a high level extension of Von Neumann's low-level insight). Homoiconicity is the beginning of onomatopoetic binary and it results in beautiful behaviors. Because of this convergence of form and content the programs can interpret, translate and execute themselves in machine code through a process of meta-circular evaluation. In fact, programs can even edit themselves and generate new programs while they run. Despite its novelty LISP is still a workaround not a fix. Ultimately it, like all computer languages, is reduced to a machine code incapable of ideating uncertainty.

In stark contrast to computer programs, DNA never errors. It mutates. Digital DNA is the most mysterious most beautiful most unicorn code. The correspondence of nucleotides to proteins accounts for all life on this earth. The duckbilled platypus and E. Coli, octopus and orchid are testament to the bountiful potential of digital systems when they are based on mystery and history, mutation and improvisation. Adenine, Cytosine, Thymine, and Guanine form a 4-digit dictionary defined by the 20 amino acids, 1 start codon and 3 stop codons. All diversity on earth is rooted in this slim dictionary.

Only a small fraction (about 2%) of our 3 billion base pairs are genes that become transcribed and translated into proteins. Some of our excess genetic material serves a structural or auxiliary role in the chromosome but much of it is to our knowledge unused. Geneticists refer to this surplus as the C-value enigma. As much as 20% of our genome may be genetic fossils of retro viruses like HIV, which incorporate into the genome lose their virulence and are passed through the generations. This code is known to contain genes turned off by evolution: immunities to ancient pathogens, un-opposable thumbs. These pseudo-genes and silent mutations are biological memory that stretches back billions of years. Just as language has information that is not expressed in meaning our DNA has data, which is not expressed in proteins. While the surplus of Chinese characters offers a complex insight into the history of a culture, our surplus DNA contains the history of life itself. In neuron and kneecap we keep it like a secret, our infinitesimal and chemical life-story.

Though we synthesize far more proteins than frogs our genome is only marginally longer. Our genome is more textured. What was once labeled "junk DNA" is now increasingly understood to add variety and depth to our code. Just as the ability to lie is one of the first signs of a complex consciousness behind a child's sweet smile, "junk DNA" betrays a nuanced genome. The cardinality of DNA is complex. It has dynamic multiple correspondences in a way that Morse code with its rigid 1 to 1 could never dream of. It is open to chance and circumstance. "Development is regulated but not determined by the genome."[14] The same mutation in DNA does not always result in the same protein expression. One might think of Sol Lewitt: “My art is about not making choices. It's in making an initial choice of, say, a system, and letting the system do the work.”[15] Our DNA sets up relationships rather than dictating interactions. “The genome does not resemble an architect’s blue print that specifies precisely how the materials are to be used, how they are to be assembled, and their final dimensions; it is not a literal description of the final form that all embryological and fetal structures will take. Rather, the genome specifies a set of interacting proteins and noncoding RNAs that set in motion the processes of growth, migration, differentiation, and apoptosis that ultimately result, with a high degree of probability, in the correct mature structures.”[16]

We are heirs to the intricate wisdom of evolution. We carry it with us, copy it daily, and give it to our children. Binary eschews this heritage in favor of streamlined, serpentine, and one-dimensional functionality. The cost of this refusal is amnesia. Without memory of mistakes binary is bound to repeat them. Without awareness of alternatives binary cannot see them. If insanity is doing the same thing twice and expecting different results DNA is insane. All code should be. We need a nonsense compiler for errorless code to represent a world as rich and varied as broken and nebulous as our own.

In every season and structure binary rejects the genetics that made it. Programs are specified in even more painstaking detail than the architect’s blueprint (down to the nanometer). Binary dies, speaks, and fucks in a static language lacking all the dynamism of DNA. Apoptosis- the intentional and typical death of a cell is a necessary part of every healthy cell’s life. As embryonic blobs in the womb, targeted apoptosis differentiates our fingers by killing the cells between them.[17] Cancer, in general, requires the malfunction of apoptosis in cells leading to the growth of tumors made of mutated immortal cells. On the other hand, industry and consumers regard the death of software- the fate of obsolescence- as an inevitable evil. We do not understand the strange promise of obsolescence. Obsolescence like apoptosis can be healthy. The body is “a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick,”[18] excluded from the endless updates and improvements of the software engineering cycle. Useless like us, obsolete technology accumulates and multiplies, deteriorates and diminishes. Repurposed and re-imagined obsolete technology can be a rickety bridge towards the human dimensions of the binary death machine.

The current dialectic of digital information exchange: the cumbersome legal restrictions of proprietary software versus the voluminous free-flow of open-source development, is entirely unsatisfactory. The corporation’s “intangible assets” are miserly attempts to constrain the flow of information. On the other hand, if we understand the open-source community as a status culture, using intelligence as currency, then the impetus behind open-source development is a programmer's pride. A world where greed and pride motivate all information exchange is a frightening prospect. The more wholesome genetic sharing of information is hopefully motivated by love. DNA is shared on a generational basis when two individuals who have survived to adulthood copulate. By the time this information is exchanged it has already accomplished a great deal. This data has successfully grown a human capable of language and memory; able to brave harsh winters and disease. Additionally, this body has managed to attract another close enough to allow for the intimate exchange to take place. In the rare and intense moment of lovemaking the data that built a body, the story of evolution, and a boatload of forgotten capabilities and mistakes are finally shared, synthesized, and begin to replicate again. This orgasmic exchange is the polar opposite of the HTTP, TCP/IP, SMTP, POP, and UDP protocols, which define and regulate the binary exchange of information.

I propose a visual computer. Rather than differentiating the violent fist as digits, I propose integrating the sensitive face as a sphere. We will root our system in the unit sphere from which trigonometry is defined. Working with definitions and not approximation we can behold and manipulate ? in its unabbreviated splendor. Likewise, e, ?, ? and the whole boatload of fractal, irrational, idiosyncratic analogs can be precisely beheld by our spheroid processor. The sphere brings infinity with it. It is like walking around the earth, you can walk forever as long as you can walk on water.


(Figure 14 Unit circle definitions of the trigonometric functions)

Gestalt Access Memory (GAM) will replace Random Access Memory (RAM). This memory will reduce to geometric primitives rather than bits. Sphere, circle, and triangle through distortion and addition can represent myriad shapes[19] The Quantum processor is the ideal hardware for our visual computer. By nature probabilistic and multiple we finally have a machine to mirror the uncertainty we meet in our world. The Quantum computer will honor the electron’s mysterious dance and plural behaviors. The waveform and thus sinusoidal character of all electromagnetic radiation yields the sphere. Though we teach trigonometry from the sphere in nature it is the other way around: the trigonometric travels of photons, electrons, and all quanta parameterize the sphere. This may be Donna Harraway’s “sunshine machine”: A “section of spectrum”[20] to teach us the fiction of distance.

Abstraction in general and digits in particular breed distance. Seeing is closeness, understanding: “I see” we say. Light is the vehicle for this empathy, its awesome speed bridging the distances of time and space. Beyond the fabrication of memory that extends and reduces life to experiences over time, beyond the convenience of location which separates the seer from the seen, we are stuck together; unspeakably close, un-differentiably integrated. “Fastened to a dying animal”[21] fractal and mutant but by virtue of an omnipresent electromagnetic radiance we call light or radio or x-ray, we imagine a sphere.






[1]Donna Harraway, The Cyborg Manifesto, http://www.egs.edu/faculty/haraway/haraway-a-cyborg-manifesto.html
[2] Rudolph Arnheim, Art and Visual Perception
[3] Marshall McLuhan Understanding Media
[4] Basic Immunology by Abul K. Abbas, Andrew H. Lichtman 2006, pg. 63
[5] Ibid.
[6] Rudolph Arnheim, Art and Visual Perception
[7] Leibniz, De Progressione Dyadica, Pars I,” (MS, 15 March 1679)
[8] Brook Taylor’s Power Series Expansions allows most elementary functions and all of trigonometry to also be reduced to addition.
[9] John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946), British economist. A Tract on Monetary Reform, ch. 3 (1923).
[10] Between 3.14159 and 3.14158 is 3.141581, 3.141582, 3.141583, 3.14158333, etc…
[11] Bob Dylan, Trying To Get To Heaven, Time Out Of Mind, 1997
[12] See The Fractal Geometry of Nature By Benoit MandelBrot. 1986
[13] See Image Worlds: Corporate Identities at General Electric, 1890-1930, David E. Nye
[14] Genetics in Medicine 7th edition, Nussbaum, McInnes, Willard, pg. 424
[15] Sol Lewitt, Recording conceptual Art, page 114, Alberro and Norvell.
[16] Genetics in Medicine 7th edition, Nussbaum, McInnes, Willard, pg. 425
[17] Our first digits are created by apoptosis!
[18] Sailing To Byzantium, William Butler Yeats
[19] All closed loop-to-point manifold shapes in 3+ dimensions can be resolved as spheres according to the now proven Poincare Conjecture. For the fascinating story behind Grigori Perlman’s proof see: “Manifold Destiny” by Sylvia Nasar and David Gruber, The New Yorker, August 28 2006, Here
[20] Donna Harraway, The Cyborg Manifesto, http://www.egs.edu/faculty/haraway/haraway-a-cyborg-manifesto.html
[21]Sailing to Byzantium, William Butler Yeats