Galatea 2.2 (3-48)

“I lost my thirty-fifth year. We got separated in the confusion of a foreign city where the language was strange and the authorities hostile.” Can I just say what an opening. I am already expecting this novel to disband all possible rules of linear time. And after reading a little further I must say that yes the language is very foreign to me. So I am going to lay out some of my major questions now in my attempt to structure my blog posts more efficiently:

• Is it just me or does the “Center” at U. resemble the “net” that Powers continually discusses or browses through?
• Is there a difference between science and the humanities?
• What is the Neural Network? Is it the middle of learning?
• What is connectionism?
• Writing Codes?
• Neurological Analog?
• How does memory fit into learning?

The Center: So the Center is literally the center of U.  which i guess is symbolically centered around the sciences.  On top of that  the Powers in the book is describing the nature of the Center at some points and then the world net at others and they seem quite similar. And referencing the foreign language that he mentioned before Powers describes this place as a “virtual space” (pg 6) in which one would never encounter the same person twice and was also literally his window in the actual “world web” which he describes on pg 7 as “another total disorientation that became status quo without anyone realizing it.”  This quote is very important because it also references that the web as a technological advancement is a product of the scientific findings and experimentation, thus science has become the “status quo” or the literal Center of the educational fields.

Science vs. Humanities: By the end of this section one thing occurred to me: What is at stake if Lentz and Powers teach this computer to analyze literature and come to the same types of conclusions with out any form of actual interaction?  What does this mean for the construction of our identities as human beings?                                                                   In the beginning of this novel Powers in a sense is giving a literary analysis of the Center and its inhumane forms of interaction.  And in some ways characterizing the scientist that work in the Center as void of human interaction and thus their works lack any basis in actual human life “a neighborhood more efficiently lonely.”  Which I think Powers equates to understanding the Center.  So how in the realm of science is this literary idea of understanding broken down; its de-constructed into a series of sparked synapses.  These firings are the biological equivalent to learning as Powers would understand it.  They are supposed to be the polar opposites, but what if they are the same.  What if the mechanics of learning the way that Lentz’s machine would is a replica of the human process of learning because in fact we have created it?

Neural Network: Simply the net is a simulation of the neurological make up of the brain, in which information is fed into the brain and this sets off a series of signals.  Synapses with the greater association will have a stronger memory of the information.  And for some reason this does seem in some ways similar to the ways that we learn cultural norms and create or fit into identities.  Lentz’s machine is fed sentences or information and the net has to spew out words or something in resemblance to what went in and the responses are given either encouragement or discouragement.  As people on an interactive level we see and hear different types of images and feelings and society tells us from when we are young that some are encouraged and some are discouraged against. And one could argue but this net does not know the idea or the sensation of feeling, yet I have to argue that like Hutcheon our senses are still representations of the real that never existed.  In many respects we have named and given meaning to our sensations and recorded them through visuals, and literature which continual reinforces these ideas and notions.

Connectionism: Definition: the theory that all mental processes can be described as the operation of inherited or acquired bonds between stimulus and response.  This idea makes me wonder, what in fact are our stimuli? And how are our responses logged?

Writing Codes: Powers makes a reference to one of his past jobs of writing codes for programs, usually in the form of the “if then” statement.  So in a sense these codes ensured that if such and such occurs then the program produces this.  But with in a postmodern society, because as Jameson argues it has become an entire culture and not just a movement, codes in this sense can only work as absolutes.  Postmodernism recognizes these forms of encoding yet does not accept them as the only viable responses.  However if one where to use encoding in a different way a way that ensures that the same codes will be used through out the evolutionary changes of society.  In many respects these are our social symbols like: freedom, femininity, love, power, justice, wrong, right, good, evil.  Each of these are encoded into our society however they take on many different forms and thus can be implemented to any system.  Which is all documented in literature, visual arts, history etc.  It is replicated in many respects all forms of human creation.  So a computer or a neural net which logs patterns would pick up on these patterns and be able to associate these globalized themes with mostly anything especially literature.

Neurological Analog: neurology: the science of the nerves and nervous system, and the diseases that affect them.                                                                                                            analog: mechanism that represents data by measurement of a continuous physical variable as voltage or pressure.

So for Lentz’s net the continual physical variable is literature and it is supposed to emulate the brains nervous system and how it as an analog represents data and measures it.  But how does the brain measure such data?  And what is our associative data?

Memory: After going through most of these questions I am glad that I left this one for the last, because through out this novel Powers is recording his memory of C. And also memory plays a key role in learning, in order to map out patterns in order to create association.