I’m fairly certain that biographies are the hardest to quote. I believe that I get to0 wrapped up in the life story of another person. That is to say that if I quote from this book for the final paper, I feel as if it might be strained quotes to say the least. Claude Shannon overall was a pretty…interesting character. Sometimes, authors Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman speak of Shannon in a very elevated sense. That is to say that they favour the genius that he was. On the other hand, I’m not sure, I got the feelings oft time that Shannon seemed to be very full of himself. I guess if I was a human computer in a time in which computers didn’t exist, I too would be a little standoffish. I sound really harsh in my critique here, and I don’t mean to be. I have Claude Shannon to thank for the very device I’m working on right now. Evidently he’s a very different man than he appears to be in the public relations video that was made so long ago.
Anyways, heres a couple of quotes that I thoughts on.
Around the 60s page mark, the authors describe several inventors and their machines. All and all it was a lead up to the project in which Shannon would work the renowned Vannevar Bush on some of the earlier computers that functioned in terms of analogue. Anyways, they say
“But it was Vannevar Bush who brought analog computing to it’s highest level, a machine for all purposes, a landmark on the way from tool to brain”(67)
This is one of the first times they mention a prelude to the discussion of what a computer essentially is, and that is a brain. There’s a lot of dialogue in the book that refers to making a computer better than a human, making it faster and more complex. They make mentions of humans being machines and that artificial intelligence and computers are naturally just an extension of what human beings can be.
For instance you have the differential analyzer, and I quote
“had solved, by brute force. equations so complex that even trying to attack them with human brainpower would have been pointless”(72)
I’m probably gonna end up using this quote actually, as it’s literally a connection to the prowess of machines over humans. Outside of measurements, machines are able to execute things a lot better than we are in certain aspects. When you have free time, go ahead and give this video a watch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1AHCaokqhg (beware it’s a long one)
It’s an analysis video on speed running in the video game Super Mario brothers. In the video they make a lot of references to tooling, which would be me giving Mario pre-commands on how to move and act throughout a level rather than me controlling Mario with my own reflexes. The point is, that in the speed running world, it’s possible to make computer Mario run a lot faster than I ever could due to the fact that he can move into glitches which are physically impossible(or improbable) for me to make. More examples of this come into the book, especially near the end of part two when it dives into Shannon’s desire to create a computer capable of being a chess master.
I happened to be taking a logic class this semester, so Shannon’s ability to dumb content down, or simplify it, I find rather ingenious, talk about a man being able to implement philosophy so deep into modern scientific research. I just wanted to throw a quote in here for when I found it to be magnificent.
“One more beauty of this system; as soon as switches are reduced to symbols, the switches no longer matter. The system could work in any medium, from clunky switches to microscopic arrays of molecules.” (94)
I’d have to say that one of the two most interesting parts of the book were the segments regarding Shannon’s work as a war scientist, and the subsequently his creation of the Information Theory and the experimentation that he undertook during his time at Bell Labs. The whole section on war really is a staple point as to what war does in terms of technology, especially how it happens to progress to the technological initiative. On page 179, the authors note that Shannon’s work on fire control had been ‘the most concrete up to date’.
Turing seemed like an interesting man, I wish we would’ve gotten to learn a little bit more about him class, he seems to be very prevalent in the work and world surrounding digital history, if I spot him in the subsequent books, I’ll laugh. The authors mention a quote from Shannon in an interview, he says,
“We had dreams, Turing and I used to talk about the possibility of simulating entirely the human brain, could we really get a computer which would be the equivalent of the human brain or even a lot better?” (214)
Again, lots of reference to improving the human brain. It’s a very interesting contention point especially with Carr’s arguments in mind from ‘The Shallows’. Think about the fact that you’d increase the ‘intelligence’ of a machine, meanwhile the intelligence of humans falls to weighside as the interact more and more with the technology.
I’ll be honest with you, the information theory as a whole confused the hell out of me, but I believe I got the basic gist out of it. I’d go further to explain it, but honestly I don’t think I could well enough in simple terms.
Sorry this one is shorter than the last one, but like I said, I rather struggle doing this sort of thing on biographies specifically.
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