A thought on

Introduction: Software, a Supersensible Sensible Thing. 2011 

Wendy Hui Kyong Chun 

Algorhythmics. A Different Approach for Understanding Computation.  2019

Shintaro Miyazaki

In the beginning, Chun merged the context of literature and its metaphorical terminology with new media objects based on an unknown and invisible definition of software, and it really appealed to me as she moved us along in fluidity through an invisible definition of software that appears to be more than just a digital component.

The software demonstrates a known by the means of an unknown, so knowing how to make it work is not the same as knowing how or why it works. Thus users may not necessarily understand how a programmatic level of software works, simply because they are able to use it. 

Based on the pragmatic foundation of software and hardware, as well as the altered way in which they are implemented, we came up with the idea of simulating brain and mind, respectively, to hardware and software. Paul Edwards has shown, he “initially comprehended the brain/mind in terms of hardware/software”. In my opinion, we can make some analogies between brains and computers if we think of computers as programmable physical systems that are capable of doing computations, but I would also like to mention that there is another perspective that determines the “brain” as “wetware” since it uses squishy organic compounds soaked in fluid as the computational substrate rather than rigid, brittle semiconductors.

“Please check out this link if you are interested to know more about Wetware! Links to an external site.”

What about the mind?

It is a kind of programming that is developed inside our brains. Unlike normal software, this programming changes over time, while the software remains fixed in its functions. Self-changing, self-modifying, and self-drive are the nature of our mind.

There is an argument in this book between, what can be seen and unseen, what can be known and unknown, which is in line with the separation of hardware and software and their powerful combination which makes an object with a ghostly interface that navigates our complex world.

I found the definition of the word Algorhythm from Shintaro Miyazaki’s book “Algorhythmics” to be particularly relevant to the concept of software. The term “Algorhythmics” refers to time-based, technological processes that occur when symbols or logical structures are modulated by matter, such as instructions or coded instructions. Algorhythmics sensitivity allows people to experience and understand the structure of a wide variety of key media operations, their fundamental principles, and their timings. In nutshell, they are trying to “understand a media through another media”, as it says in the text!

Figure 23.1 Screenshots of Algorhythmic Sorting (2010–11) with merge sort, bubble sort, and insert sort (from top to bottom) done by the author.

In addition, considering that we live in the physical world, it makes sense that the interfaces of computers should reflect that as closely as possible. It should help us to understand the unknown by using a metaphor based on what we already know about these “things”!

Algorithmics can be used to help us better understand computing and its role in society, especially now that we are creating a continually expanding and evolving new world through algorithmic structures. I perceive it as a giant computer (CPU) processing another intelligent ecosystem, closely related to the concept of mind.

After all, I would like to wrap it up with a quote from, ”Metaphors We Live By by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson - 1980 Links to an external site.”:

“The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another. we are understanding one thing in terms of something else of the same kind. But in conventional metaphor, we are understanding one thing in terms of something else of a different kind.”