Steaming down

the sunlight

Professor Willard McCartyKing’s College Londonstaff.cch.kcl.ac.uk/~wmccarty/

HSIS, Galway, 17/11/07

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TOC

1. A parable2. Computer science & the humanities3. The humanities and method4. Athens and Jerusalem5. Analytic computing6. Synthetic computing7. Conclusion

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Odysseus’ katabasis, from Padraic Colum, Adventures of Odysseus (1918) & a photograph of a “brickie” (1947)

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TOC

1. A parable2. Computer science & the humanities3. The humanities and method4. Athens and Jerusalem5. Analytic computing6. Synthetic computing7. Conclusion

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2006: dhcs2006.uchicago.edu/ 2007: dhcs.northwestern.edu/

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TOC

1. A parable2. Computer science & the humanities3. The humanities and method4. Athens and Jerusalem5. Analytic computing6. Synthetic computing7. Conclusion

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“[T]he specific problem that the [humanities] present to thought is that one has not rightly grasped their nature if one measures them by the yardstick of a progressive knowledge of regularity…. [Research in the humanities] does not endeavour to grasp the concrete phenomenon as an instance of a universal rule. The individual case does not serve only to confirm a law from which practical predictions can be made. Its ideal is rather to understand the phenomenon itself in its unique and historical concreteness.”

Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method (2000/1960): 4f

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“For the object of understanding human events is to sense the alternativeness of human possibility.”

Jerome Bruner, “Possible Castles”, Actual Minds, Possible Worlds (1986)

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TOC

1. A parable2. Computer science & the humanities3. The humanities and method4. Athens and Jerusalem5. Analytic computing6. Synthetic computing7. Conclusion

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“Quid ergo Athenis et Hiersolymis?”

Quintus Septimus Florens Tertullianus (ca 155-230)

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TOC

1. A parable2. Computer science & the humanities3. The humanities and method4. Athens and Jerusalem5. Analytic computing6. Synthetic computing7. Conclusion

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Analytic modelling

experience

compare

simplify

manipulate

Non-symbolic system

Symbolic system

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Effectively computable representation

“the hem of a quantum garment”

residue

Narrative meaning

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TOC

1. A parable2. Computer science & the humanities3. The humanities and method4. Athens and Jerusalem5. Analytic computing6. Synthetic computing7. Conclusion

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Autopoiesis in art: “Drawing hands”, M. C. Escher (1948)

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TOC

1. A parable2. Computer science & the humanities3. The humanities and method4. Athens and Jerusalem5. Analytic computing6. Synthetic computing7. Conclusion

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Analogies

“as A is to B, so C is to D”

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Society?

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