Re: <nettime> Digital Humanities Manifesto

[inimino <inimino@inimino.org>]

Flick Harrison wrote:
> I think the main problem I have in this discussion is that I can't
> say that a lightswitch is isomorphic with numbers. Nor is a telegraph
> button.

I don't think anyone is arguing that a lightswitch qua lightswitch 
is isomorphic with numbers.  Its {on, off} states certainly are.

> On / off is a binary state that could be counted, could be
> numbered,

What more is required?

> but to demand that a switch-state equals a numerical state
> is just to impose conceptuality on a physical fact.

Isomorphism is not equality.

I'm not sure what you mean by "imposing conceptuality on a 
physical fact", but I don't think we can get far in language 
or applied mathematics without naming and numbering things.

It reads to me like you might be hung up on the idea that a 
lightswitch in the off position is somehow the same thing as 
a mathematical concept zero, but nobody is suggesting that.

-- 
http://inimino.org/~inimino/blog/





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