In Defense of Reductionism
Yesterday I turned on my new computer for the first time. The distinction between nervous anticipation and elated, heart-soaring euphoria had never seemed so subtle. This sensation sums up a month or more of learning, growth and triumph.
Of course I've purchased my own computer and booted it up before. My parents gifted me with my first personal PC when I graduated from high school. The Dell delivery was something like a 486 Celeron, back when people were still excited about MMX. It finally gave me the excuse to cloister myself away from family and friends, gouging my eyes with Diablo II and Red Alert.
That box and I went through a lot. I learned to install RAM. I bought my first CD Burner and installed it myself. I pirated every conceivable piece of software; upgraded to an illicit copy of Windows XP as soon as I could. It was mine. I've never owned a car, even at twenty five, and I think that the computer took the place of that. No one, not even my parents, could tell me how to decorate it, what to fill it with, or how to organize it. As an adult (of a sort), this seems pretty commonplace now, but it was an experiment that made the potpourri of responsibility, ownership and absolute license gel into something concrete.
I've had a few other computers, including the laptop I'm writing this on, the computer a friend assembled for me in college, and the awkward, out of body experience of controlling, but not owning the machine that serves me at work. This is different, though. This one I built myself. I selected, purchased, assembled and lovingly caressed each and every part from the case to the graphics card and motherboard. I connected each and every one of LEDs on the front panel, hooked up extra USB ports and applied thermal paste to the CPU fan.
Aside from a few simple upgrades in the past, this has been a growth process. It's been about research, learning, nervous sweat and staying up late into the night with an anti-static strap dangling off my wrist like some kind of umbilical tether. I remarked to a friend: this is the closest I may ever come to building a person.
Hyperbole aside, this is important. I have what you might describe as an incorporeal skill set. I deal in ideas, words, concepts and lines of best fit. I don't do well with detail. Concentration isn't my strong suit until I'm ingrained in a process. Rote memorization of the steps. I spent this last week having dreams of collapsing buildings, tornado-struck circuit boards and wires snapping under undue strain. I was so sure I was going to wind up with a cat's cradle of connectors that wouldn't even make a good birds nest. Electric shocks striking forth like a testy Tesla coil, or a jumpy Jacob's ladder.
But, yeah, I was willing to drop a half month's salary and go into hermitage to do this. It's more than just a learning experience; it's demystifying. It takes the magic out of the machine.
It's reductionist.
I've run into that word a little bit lately, so it's worth dwelling on. Reductionist philosophy begins with Descartes as near as I can tell. The idea that the everything can be broken down into processes metaphorical gears. All things are machines, in the sense that machines which we make are merely clumsy, macroscopic devices when compared to, say, the machine that is a duck. The real controversy—one which Cartesian thought squarely rejects—is whether the human mind (or soul) can be reduced to automata. Turing machines and Darwinian science have heated up this debate quite a bit.
I have been confronted with reductionism lately for this reason. People have had a variety of responses to Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, and toss around labels like Reductionist or Darwinian Fundamentalist. They believe that trying to reduce the human condition to a robotic, predictable one is to insult, or even deny God's plan. It invalidates our uniqueness. This is a subject that has riled me up on more than one occasion, but I want no more than to mention it as a touchstone right now.
The reason I bring it up is that there is a positive side of reductionist thought. One I think we can all agree on: it breaks down boundaries to comprehension. Especially in the case of physical things.
When I look at a car, for example, I see a car. Although I could draw a clumsy picture of a combustion engine, and explain its fundamental workings, I'm not really sure what all the parts are, nor could I look at them and identify them. To me, a car is one thing, not a system of separate, functioning objects. To someone who works those pieces, and can diagnose problems within that system, a car must be a very different thing. It has a scale that I can't speak about with confidence or knowledge. While I'm aware that there are specialists for this sort of thing, and that the cash economy means I never need to learn these skills, I perceive a personal flaw that I am unable to explain to you what a catalytic converter is, or where the spark plugs are. I can barely change the oil on a car.
Knowledge, to me, is about reducing. Deconstructing the thought-object of a car into its parts. Surgeons have done this with the heart. Psychiatrists are doing this with the brain. Biochemists with DNA. Science struggles to ask “Why?” rather than accepting the unknown, or explaining with magic.
And this week I took a major step toward a more microscopic computer understanding. I know infinitely more about the workings of my computer than I did. I think I'm a better person for that reason. More rounded. I have another merit badge to add to my private, mental collection.
Metaphorically, imagine a book you haven't read. I'm going to use Lee Smith's The Last Girls, because it's been on my shelf a few weeks, but I haven't gotten to it. I know some things about it. I know who the author is, I've read at least one review, I read the back panel and the “About the Author” text. But I couldn't name a character. I couldn't tell you the details or chronology of the plot. In short, all it is to me now is a thought object. A summation of a few details, rather than a system of intricate parts that all link together.
And that is what comprehension is to me. It is, to be a little gauche and referential, to grok something. So, I will continue to fight magical understanding. I will reduce. I will understand elementally. If this deterministic, unfeeling universe of molecules and forces is willing, some day I'll build a person.
1. Yes, I know how to change a car's oil. No, I've never owned a car. I've worked in support jobs for the automotive industry, however, and I know a lot of car fanatics. This is what I'm getting at. Deal for a minute.
2. Holy crap, “grok” is in the Open Office .dic file. Does anyone else think that's weird?
Of course I've purchased my own computer and booted it up before. My parents gifted me with my first personal PC when I graduated from high school. The Dell delivery was something like a 486 Celeron, back when people were still excited about MMX. It finally gave me the excuse to cloister myself away from family and friends, gouging my eyes with Diablo II and Red Alert.
That box and I went through a lot. I learned to install RAM. I bought my first CD Burner and installed it myself. I pirated every conceivable piece of software; upgraded to an illicit copy of Windows XP as soon as I could. It was mine. I've never owned a car, even at twenty five, and I think that the computer took the place of that. No one, not even my parents, could tell me how to decorate it, what to fill it with, or how to organize it. As an adult (of a sort), this seems pretty commonplace now, but it was an experiment that made the potpourri of responsibility, ownership and absolute license gel into something concrete.
I've had a few other computers, including the laptop I'm writing this on, the computer a friend assembled for me in college, and the awkward, out of body experience of controlling, but not owning the machine that serves me at work. This is different, though. This one I built myself. I selected, purchased, assembled and lovingly caressed each and every part from the case to the graphics card and motherboard. I connected each and every one of LEDs on the front panel, hooked up extra USB ports and applied thermal paste to the CPU fan.
Aside from a few simple upgrades in the past, this has been a growth process. It's been about research, learning, nervous sweat and staying up late into the night with an anti-static strap dangling off my wrist like some kind of umbilical tether. I remarked to a friend: this is the closest I may ever come to building a person.
Hyperbole aside, this is important. I have what you might describe as an incorporeal skill set. I deal in ideas, words, concepts and lines of best fit. I don't do well with detail. Concentration isn't my strong suit until I'm ingrained in a process. Rote memorization of the steps. I spent this last week having dreams of collapsing buildings, tornado-struck circuit boards and wires snapping under undue strain. I was so sure I was going to wind up with a cat's cradle of connectors that wouldn't even make a good birds nest. Electric shocks striking forth like a testy Tesla coil, or a jumpy Jacob's ladder.
But, yeah, I was willing to drop a half month's salary and go into hermitage to do this. It's more than just a learning experience; it's demystifying. It takes the magic out of the machine.
It's reductionist.
I've run into that word a little bit lately, so it's worth dwelling on. Reductionist philosophy begins with Descartes as near as I can tell. The idea that the everything can be broken down into processes metaphorical gears. All things are machines, in the sense that machines which we make are merely clumsy, macroscopic devices when compared to, say, the machine that is a duck. The real controversy—one which Cartesian thought squarely rejects—is whether the human mind (or soul) can be reduced to automata. Turing machines and Darwinian science have heated up this debate quite a bit.
I have been confronted with reductionism lately for this reason. People have had a variety of responses to Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, and toss around labels like Reductionist or Darwinian Fundamentalist. They believe that trying to reduce the human condition to a robotic, predictable one is to insult, or even deny God's plan. It invalidates our uniqueness. This is a subject that has riled me up on more than one occasion, but I want no more than to mention it as a touchstone right now.
The reason I bring it up is that there is a positive side of reductionist thought. One I think we can all agree on: it breaks down boundaries to comprehension. Especially in the case of physical things.
When I look at a car, for example, I see a car. Although I could draw a clumsy picture of a combustion engine, and explain its fundamental workings, I'm not really sure what all the parts are, nor could I look at them and identify them. To me, a car is one thing, not a system of separate, functioning objects. To someone who works those pieces, and can diagnose problems within that system, a car must be a very different thing. It has a scale that I can't speak about with confidence or knowledge. While I'm aware that there are specialists for this sort of thing, and that the cash economy means I never need to learn these skills, I perceive a personal flaw that I am unable to explain to you what a catalytic converter is, or where the spark plugs are. I can barely change the oil on a car.
Knowledge, to me, is about reducing. Deconstructing the thought-object of a car into its parts. Surgeons have done this with the heart. Psychiatrists are doing this with the brain. Biochemists with DNA. Science struggles to ask “Why?” rather than accepting the unknown, or explaining with magic.
And this week I took a major step toward a more microscopic computer understanding. I know infinitely more about the workings of my computer than I did. I think I'm a better person for that reason. More rounded. I have another merit badge to add to my private, mental collection.
Metaphorically, imagine a book you haven't read. I'm going to use Lee Smith's The Last Girls, because it's been on my shelf a few weeks, but I haven't gotten to it. I know some things about it. I know who the author is, I've read at least one review, I read the back panel and the “About the Author” text. But I couldn't name a character. I couldn't tell you the details or chronology of the plot. In short, all it is to me now is a thought object. A summation of a few details, rather than a system of intricate parts that all link together.
And that is what comprehension is to me. It is, to be a little gauche and referential, to grok something. So, I will continue to fight magical understanding. I will reduce. I will understand elementally. If this deterministic, unfeeling universe of molecules and forces is willing, some day I'll build a person.
1. Yes, I know how to change a car's oil. No, I've never owned a car. I've worked in support jobs for the automotive industry, however, and I know a lot of car fanatics. This is what I'm getting at. Deal for a minute.
2. Holy crap, “grok” is in the Open Office .dic file. Does anyone else think that's weird?
posted by Maximillian @ 4:39 PM
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