An Algorithmic Outlook

At the end of this post is a great history of early computational devices and the dawn of digital computing by Paul Dunne. Dunne has done a remarkable job of succinctly covering the movement from mechanical to electrical computing machines.

Dunne's recounting of Ada the Countess of Lovelace and Charles Babbage's pursuit is not to be missed. Living in the mechanical environment they possessed a mindset more appropriate to the 21st century. For visionaries like Lovelace, Babbage, and George Boole, an algorithmic sensibility set them ahead of their time. Its interesting to note the emergence of algorithmic (as opposed to geometric) thought within Babbage's own life.

The first thing to understanding computing is to understand that it is algorithmic, it is process driven. As some linguists have concluded, the function of a word or morpheme defines its meaning. In the computing environment, the basic elements are defined by their processes. Together these basic elements and their processes form the system. For anyone born into the computing environment, this way of viewing the world is second nature, its subconscious.

The syntax of Boolean algebra is an incredible statement of this worldview, perhaps only more elegantly captured in the syntax of Instant Messaging and Text Messaging. The speed of the 'IMs' and 'texts' of the computing environment are not significantly greater than the telegrams of the electrical environment. It was only in the process-driven computing environment that the letters and symbols themselves took on greater meaning as defined by their role in the communication process. It is algorithmic thought that makes a semi-colon paired with an end-parentheses far more meaningful than perhaps 100 letters of the alphabet strung together in a linear fashion. ;)

It is know wonder then, that when we look at an electron we can only know its position, but not its velocity, or visa versa. As one would expect when peering into the workings of nature through an algorithmic lens, we can only see where the process is headed or what the intermediate result is. Despite this 'spooky behavior' as Einstein called it, quantum physics has a better model for most phenomenon than the Newtonian physics wrought from the print environment.

This probability and process nature of quantum physics is one of the defining characteristics of the computing environment. The study of quantum physics grows within the computing environment that makes the calculations possible.

It may seem ironic that the semi-conductor wrought from quantum physics has driven the expansion (better, encapsulation) of the computing environment. Looking ahead to the next post, we will see this (what at first glance is circularity) as another defining characteristic of the computing environment.

Mechanical Aids to Computation and the Development of Algorithms

Beginning to Understand the Computing Environment. . . .

Understanding the environment created by computing is vital to our physical, psychological and spiritual survival. The electrical environment of Thomas Edison consumed and contained the mechanical environment of Henry Ford. Understanding how the computing environment will consume and contain the electrical environment is our main concern.

In a lecture titled 'Cybernetics and Human Culture', Marshall McLuhan helps us to begin understanding computing:

Pictorial three-dimensional art has little in common with the acoustic space because it selects a single moment in the life of a form, whereas the flat iconic image gives an integral bounding line or contour that represents not one moment or one aspect of a form, but offers instead an inclusive integral pattern. This is a mysterious matter to highly visual and literate people who associate visual organization of experience with the real world and who say 'Seeing is Believing'. Yet this strange gap between the specialist, visual world and the integral, auditory world needs to be understood today above all, for it contains the key to an understanding of what automation and cybernetics imply. To anticipate a bit, and to capsulate a good deal, let me suggest that cybernation has much in common with the acoustic world and very little in common with the visual world.

Ever since we learned to speak, mediating and meditating on our existence has defined the arc of human progress. The alphabet lit a fire that burned as long as the Roman Empire. Gutenberg's mechanical improvement of Chinese block-printing caused an explosion of culture. When we harnessed electricity for communication an implosion occurred of atomic proportions.

Internally, our nervous system communicates through electrical signals. Since the birth of the telegraph, the external signals we send to each other are increasingly communicated through electricity. There is a unique symmetry of communication and parallel of media here. It could be that this is a natural consequence of evolution as Pierre Teilhard de Chardin has stated. As Marshall McLuhan has pointed out, amongst other results of this unique parallel of media is the depth of communication which is possible: the inputs and outputs of electronic media vibrate to our very core. If we fail to understand the medium of computing, we will miss an opportunity to improve the lives of people throughout the world. We might even find expressing our thoughts and feelings to each other or forming a connection with another person or another culture more difficult than any time in human history.

For McLuhan, computing was another part of the electronic environment, or the latest evolutionary species to emerge from that environment. Time has shown that computing is an environment of its own as its consumed and contained all the media of the previous electronic environment: photography, telegraphy, telephony, phonography, moving pictures, radio, and television. The situation is more dire, for McLuhan and others who tried to deepen our understanding of the electrical environment had scant time for their ideas to percolate through society before the computing environment closed in.

The main concern of these writings is an adventure, as McLuhan would have put it. The plan is to stride out into the landscape and shed light on some landmarks so that others may follow and record in detail. We'll find that the mapping of the electronic environment has left us with a rough sketch of the coastline so that we can make a landing point. We'll also run into a few of the other adventurers who so far have been bold enough to tread inland and explore. While 'adventuring' may carry a light-hearted connotation, make no mistake, the stakes are high . . .

Humankind and humanity rest on our ability as a people to understand computing.