to: ellipsis
from: jcj
5 July 1996
subject: letter five F
attachments: i+e online
dear Tom and Jonathan
After those two little pieces that to me seem so
big in their connectedness I don't wish to say
very much. It's for those who read them to say
what they think or they wish and for me to shut up
and move on.
Twenty-three monosyllables in that sentence. A
good omen I think.The next piece, 'i+e online'
includes several of my many attempts to restart
this book, or this hypertext, not knowing even
then (it was written last April) if and how to
relate what I have in mind to your quite specific
request of a year ago to 'write a timely book
about the internet'. You will see in this piece of
writing quite enough, I should think, to
understand why I've found your request, or
invitation, unexpectedly difficult to respond to.
Only with the last-minute resort to these letters
(as a way of connecting but not unifying the
diversity) have I felt that I can finish by the
date promised, or even at all. But now all seems
quite well, as the flow of the last few suggests.
In the semi-silence of the night I hear an owl in
the distance while within this room is the quiet
sound of the Mac, which waits so patiently in
readiness for whatever its user can write.
I like so much that to the computer all this is
not owls or its own sound but binary digits
100001010110101010101010101000001010101
and yet it's programmed to know that that line is
not program but the same nonsense as is this to
its 'mind' or its 'brain' or its 'sense'.
I dislike each of those terms as a name for what
is happening in a computer. I believe them all to
be what Edwin Schlossberg described as
'dysfunctional metaphors', those that immobilise
us into perceiving our creations as more than they
are, and often more than we.
When I asked Edwin what he thought of artificial
intelligence he paused for a moment and then he
said 'all intelligence is artificial'. And then,
after another pause 'and all artifice is
intelligent'. And to me that's the end of the
matter.
I feel now as if anything at all that comes to
mind is appropriate in this writing and it's a
feeling I've longed for but not felt until just
now. But to get the book finished by Friday (today
is Sunday) I must keep the letters short, if I
can, and this is so I'll stop.
The next letter will be about the antecedents, as
I see them, in the literatures of modern times.
And that must be the first time I've known, let
alone told, what is coming and for once I'm
enjoying the knowledge. So with that I return to
my bed and more writing tomorrow and I wish you
good night once again.
jcj