**4. Post-Wilden views of analog and digital**

Dreyfus has made an ongoing effort to monitor the progress of Artificial Intelligence and appears to make an effort to evaluate it as generously as possible. For example, he admits the development of Google, with its weighting of web pages by their apparent importance to searchers, shows some of his skepticism was excessive ([7], pp. 21-24). Google shows a computer can get a sort of indirect knowledge of what web pages are about without really understanding them ([7], p. 22). If a lot of searchers have shown interest in a page, that indicates something about its content. However, it says nothing about the *correctness* of the content. The interest of people in a page may be due to irrational factors or manipulation by the publisher.

Dreyfus says the big problem with AI is the computer's lack of "embodiment." Humans have common sense, and this is inextricably tied to our having bodies ([7], pp. 18-20). This appears to have replaced the concept of the "analog" for him. After all, analog computers are just another kind of machine. As Von Neumann showed, analog computers are used to do arithmetic ([4], p. 3). They are really just a different way to represent quantities. Our common sense comes from our not being machines.

However, there may be another sense in which the analog is relevant. Wilden pointed out that the human programmer provides a "necessary analog component to complement the amazing brute-force problem-solving capabilities of the digital computer" ([2], p. 157). Computers operate on codes, and a code as a whole is an analog of something. It is a way to get computers, with their ones and zeroes which are mostly meaningless to us, to do useful work by modeling some human activity such as writing or playing games. Von Neumann showed that digital computers have this power because they have memory ([4], pp. 19-20). This allows them to do things besides arithmetic. The programmer can instruct the computer to transform its numerical memory into something non-numerical. Nonetheless, one can argue the computer has no knowledge of the world. It is primarily a kind of mental prosthesis that allows us to perform certain functions faster and more accurately.

There is a connection between this and Peirce's semiotic theory. The computer code functions as a kind of "icon," in that its relation to a human cognitive activity is one of similarity ([1], p. 102). The skill of the programmer consists in her ability to make the program as analogous to the human activity as possible, while making sure the computer is consistently able to perform the actions. When she does not do a good enough job, the program, and perhaps the computer as a whole, "crashes."

In the book, Dreyfus makes a contrast between Plato, who pushed a "disembodied" conception of human personality, and Nietzsche, who emphasized our embodiment ([7], p. 5). Dreyfus is particularly doubtful about the efficacy of

**31**

*Analog, Embodiment, and Freedom*

*them ([7], p. 33).*

indeterminacy and freedom.

**5. The second cognitive revolution**

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89595*

distance learning. He goes through the stages of learning from the novice, the advanced beginner, competence, proficiency, expertise and, finally, mastery and shows how the body and emotion are increasingly necessary as one progresses up the scale. Have not the Stoics and Descartes taught us that we make the most progress without emotion? ([7], p. 32) Dreyfus argues that learning above the stage of novice requires a level of emotion. We must want to succeed and worry about not measuring up. The teacher provides a model of commitment, and if we are not

physically present with him or her, we lack the cues necessary for progress:

*If the teacher is detached and computer-like, the students will be too. Conversely, if the teacher shows his involvement in the way he pursues the truth, considers daring hypotheses and interpretations, is open to students' suggestions and objections, and emotionally dwells on the choices that have led him to his conclusions and actions, the students will be more likely to let their own successes and failures matter to* 

In a 2018 article, Beatrice Fazi attempts to build on the work of Gilles Deleuze to create a "digital esthetics" [8]. While Deleuze did not talk about computers very much, his work implied that the digital could not participate in the esthetic or creativity, central aspects of his philosophy. Digital computers depend on discreteness, on determinacy, but for Deleuze, indeterminacy was essential to life. Is there any way the digital can play a role in creativity? She surveys some attempts to make computers "creativity and esthetics friendly." One approach is to link the operation of the computer to the lived experience of users ("embedded computing"). This provides an "analog" or "embodied" supplement to the computer's cold, digital operation. Anna Munster made a particularly vivid attempt at this by emphasizing that the analog and the digital that come together in human-computer interaction are "more than the sum of their parts" ([8], pp. 12-13). Humans and computers working together have the

potential to produce novel elements neither could produce on their own.

Fazi is not entirely satisfied with this solution. It is problematic because it ties the value of the digital to the analog (or embodied) elements, and she wants to believe the digital, or more precisely the computational, is valuable in itself. She calls her desired conception a "computational esthetics." This must go beyond "the discrete features of digital technologies, such as digits and pixels" to include also the "finite steps that characterize computation as an axiomatic and algorithmic method" ([8], p. 16). She discusses the work of Alan Turing in formalizing the nature of computing processes. He showed they work via precise, finite routines, but also that certain problems could not be solved in this way. They are "incomputable" because the steps they require are infinite ([8], p. 21). Gödel's Theorem showed that the computational depends ultimately on formal axioms arising from indeterminacy, since they cannot be deduced from the formal system themselves ([8], p. 20). Thus Fazi ends with a computational esthetics broadly compatible with Deleuze. The computational is valuable for its "systematizing and rationalizing logical capacity" ([8], p. 16) while not undermining

A development bearing on all these questions is what has been called "the Second Cognitive Revolution." Dreyfus was an important person in the history of this movement [9]. Rom Harré has summarized the direction of the movement by saying the earlier Cognitive Revolution was too focused on cognition as governed by

#### *Analog, Embodiment, and Freedom DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89595*

*Cognitive and Intermedial Semiotics*

*Internet*.

machines.

translations of language if they can learn ([6], p. 35).

**4. Post-Wilden views of analog and digital**

understandable ([6], p. 33). This is an example of "tacit" knowledge and ambiguity tolerance. He cites Bar-Hillel for the view that machines can only make good

Dreyfus has made an ongoing effort to monitor the progress of Artificial Intelligence and appears to make an effort to evaluate it as generously as possible. For example, he admits the development of Google, with its weighting of web pages by their apparent importance to searchers, shows some of his skepticism was excessive ([7], pp. 21-24). Google shows a computer can get a sort of indirect knowledge of what web pages are about without really understanding them ([7], p. 22). If a lot of searchers have shown interest in a page, that indicates something about its content. However, it says nothing about the *correctness* of the content. The interest of people in a page may be due to irrational factors or manipulation by the publisher. Dreyfus says the big problem with AI is the computer's lack of "embodiment." Humans have common sense, and this is inextricably tied to our having bodies ([7], pp. 18-20). This appears to have replaced the concept of the "analog" for him. After all, analog computers are just another kind of machine. As Von Neumann showed, analog computers are used to do arithmetic ([4], p. 3). They are really just a different way to represent quantities. Our common sense comes from our not being

However, there may be another sense in which the analog is relevant. Wilden pointed out that the human programmer provides a "necessary analog component to complement the amazing brute-force problem-solving capabilities of the digital computer" ([2], p. 157). Computers operate on codes, and a code as a whole is an analog of something. It is a way to get computers, with their ones and zeroes which are mostly meaningless to us, to do useful work by modeling some human activity such as writing or playing games. Von Neumann showed that digital computers have this power because they have memory ([4], pp. 19-20). This allows them to do things besides arithmetic. The programmer can instruct the computer to transform its numerical memory into something non-numerical. Nonetheless, one can argue the computer has no knowledge of the world. It is primarily a kind of mental prosthesis that allows us to perform certain functions faster and more accurately. There is a connection between this and Peirce's semiotic theory. The computer code functions as a kind of "icon," in that its relation to a human cognitive activity is one of similarity ([1], p. 102). The skill of the programmer consists in her ability to make the program as analogous to the human activity as possible, while making sure the computer is consistently able to perform the actions. When she does not do a good enough job, the program, and perhaps the computer as a whole, "crashes." In the book, Dreyfus makes a contrast between Plato, who pushed a "disembodied" conception of human personality, and Nietzsche, who emphasized our embodiment ([7], p. 5). Dreyfus is particularly doubtful about the efficacy of

Dreyfus quotes a statement by Bullock on "graded synaptic potential," similar to Wilden's "threshold effects," arguing that the nervous system is a "complex analog device" rather than digital ([6], p. 56). He goes on to speculate on "wet" computers that simulate the way the human brain works, perhaps taking the form of an analog computer using ion solutions whose electrical properties change to model relationships. However, he cites Maurice Merleau-Ponty for doubts this would be adequate, since the human body as a whole plays an important role in facilitating intelligent behavior ([6], p. 59). This is the primary theme of Dreyfus's later work, *On the* 

**30**

distance learning. He goes through the stages of learning from the novice, the advanced beginner, competence, proficiency, expertise and, finally, mastery and shows how the body and emotion are increasingly necessary as one progresses up the scale. Have not the Stoics and Descartes taught us that we make the most progress without emotion? ([7], p. 32) Dreyfus argues that learning above the stage of novice requires a level of emotion. We must want to succeed and worry about not measuring up. The teacher provides a model of commitment, and if we are not physically present with him or her, we lack the cues necessary for progress:

*If the teacher is detached and computer-like, the students will be too. Conversely, if the teacher shows his involvement in the way he pursues the truth, considers daring hypotheses and interpretations, is open to students' suggestions and objections, and emotionally dwells on the choices that have led him to his conclusions and actions, the students will be more likely to let their own successes and failures matter to them ([7], p. 33).*

In a 2018 article, Beatrice Fazi attempts to build on the work of Gilles Deleuze to create a "digital esthetics" [8]. While Deleuze did not talk about computers very much, his work implied that the digital could not participate in the esthetic or creativity, central aspects of his philosophy. Digital computers depend on discreteness, on determinacy, but for Deleuze, indeterminacy was essential to life. Is there any way the digital can play a role in creativity? She surveys some attempts to make computers "creativity and esthetics friendly." One approach is to link the operation of the computer to the lived experience of users ("embedded computing"). This provides an "analog" or "embodied" supplement to the computer's cold, digital operation. Anna Munster made a particularly vivid attempt at this by emphasizing that the analog and the digital that come together in human-computer interaction are "more than the sum of their parts" ([8], pp. 12-13). Humans and computers working together have the potential to produce novel elements neither could produce on their own.

Fazi is not entirely satisfied with this solution. It is problematic because it ties the value of the digital to the analog (or embodied) elements, and she wants to believe the digital, or more precisely the computational, is valuable in itself. She calls her desired conception a "computational esthetics." This must go beyond "the discrete features of digital technologies, such as digits and pixels" to include also the "finite steps that characterize computation as an axiomatic and algorithmic method" ([8], p. 16). She discusses the work of Alan Turing in formalizing the nature of computing processes. He showed they work via precise, finite routines, but also that certain problems could not be solved in this way. They are "incomputable" because the steps they require are infinite ([8], p. 21). Gödel's Theorem showed that the computational depends ultimately on formal axioms arising from indeterminacy, since they cannot be deduced from the formal system themselves ([8], p. 20). Thus Fazi ends with a computational esthetics broadly compatible with Deleuze. The computational is valuable for its "systematizing and rationalizing logical capacity" ([8], p. 16) while not undermining indeterminacy and freedom.
