by Geert Lovink
The West Berlin philosopher and programmer Werner Künzel has
hatched the ambitious plan of developing a genealogy of computer
theory, written in "the spirit of philosophy". In the five books
he has published thus far, he discusses founding fathers like
Lullus, Leibniz, Kircher and Babbage. The roots of High Tech,
says Künzel, reach back into the Middle Ages.
In a bright, clear style this textual archeologist delivers his
rejoinder to anyone who believes the computer appeared on the
scene only in the mid-20th century and would write off the pre-electronic era as barbaric. Künzel: "Computer theory is currently
so successful that it seems to have no use for its own history.
Yet something is being lost. Artifical intelligence is a good
illustration of this. People started researching it in the 19th
century and ended up via philosophy and psychology in
technological waters. Intelligence seems to have become a
question of engineering, though you can treat it in an
interdisciplinary way as well." Künzel's archeological
excavations blur those boundaries. He is addressing philosophers
as well as hard- and software designers.
After teaching at Siemens during the day, in the evenings Werner
Künzel enthusiastically hits the books in an effort to expose
the "secret origins" of the computer. After completing his
dissertation on Foucault and Hegel he went for training as a
programmer. A reference in an American book put him on the trail
of 13th century Spanish priest Raymundus Lullus. This inventor
and missionary developed a blueprint for a symbolic "text
machine" which generates semantic combinations. Künzel was
surprised at how established philosophy displaced the engineers
within its own ranks and how it outright censures them. "If
there's anything the exponents of Pure Intellect thoroughly
detest, it's the attempt to somehow mathematize the philosophical
truth," writes Künzel in his book on Lullus. "In their eyes,
nothing is so awful as the infiltration of mathematics into the
realm of ideas."
Since the German idealism of around 1800, according to Künzel,
philosophy has withdrawn into its own territory and let the
industrial revolution pass it by. "The gulf between technology
and the arts and letters did not arise in the 20th century. At
the moment I happen to be reading Gaston Bachelard's writings on
epistemology, in which he accuses 19th century philosophers of
not having understood the technical developments of their time.
The philosophy we know today gets the few opinions it has of
technology from a period that was not yet technological - before
1800. In this case Bachelard is talking about electronics. 19th
century philosophy was oriented to the bourgeois consciousness,
which was in fact so stable during this period that reflection on
the upcoming technology was not needed to prove the validity of
philosophy. Only in the second half of the 20th century have
philosophers had to acknowledge that they have fallen behind.
Heidegger, and also the Frankfurt School, tried to rewrite the
history of philosophy, to trace the point at which it had gotten
out of touch with the world, but none of them spoke of theĐrĐ
natural sciences or engineering." Technology remained synonymous
with "catastrophe", an external threat to the world, but also to
thought itself. That philosophers were, nota bene, present at the
birth of the computer is not addressed in present-day historical
writing.
In analogy to Nietzsche's "artist-philosopher" you might call
Künzel an "engineer-philosopher". I asked him what this would
denote. "An engineer-philosopher is someone who derives his
concept of reality from the media he works with. This is a huge
break with the concept of reality as it has been taught up to the
present, which is still based on Plato's Dialogues. We still use
a table, a chair or a tree for an example. It may sound curious,
but our concept of reality hasn't changed in 2000 years. If we
think from a technological media paradigm we're not supposed to
take the possible loss of bodily powers of perception for
granted. It's more about making a concession to the changed
environment. The engineer-philosopher does not per se have to
take these developments any further either, but he should at
least think about them. We should at the very least realize what
happens when knowledge is transferred and stored through media."
For Künzel technology is more than a collection of machines;
above all, it is a case of tinkering. And texts can be doctored,
too. Künzel practices "Ars Combinatoria" in his own unique way:
he proves that there is a promising future to thinking in
rhizomatic bifurcations, applied at the interface between
philosophy and technology. This goes beyond the use of a free,
associative writing style in order to unlock hidden stories.
Electronic media alter the structure of thinking itself. So the
introduction of hypertext could have exciting consequences. How
will the history of philosophy be received when all its basic
texts, from the pre-socratics to postmodernism, can fit on one
CD-ROM? Heidegger's Sein und Zeit will undoubtedly become much
more accessible; you look at the word "Geworfenheit" and are
shown a short explanation of the term, an etymology, other
passages and "books" in which Heidegger uses the term, and which
other philosophers take it up. Compact hermeneutics will give
interactive intervention in existing texts a solid, technical
base; technology not only heightens the pleasure to be had in
word processing, it offers new communication opportunities.
Künzel: "In contrast to film, radio and TV, which they used to
say only made us into passive consumers, the computer activates
us and makes us producers. This active aspect of knowledge
production has brought about a great change in authorship. Until
recently an author was someone who wrote books and gave readings.
Interactive knowledge production via networks has so many
consequences for authorship that philosophy and literary studies
can't fully survey it yet."
Werner Künzel, with his colleague Heiko Cornelius, has already
provided an example of these technological possibilities and
translated Lullus's Ars Magna into the "higher language" of
Cobol (available separately on floppy). They do not intend this
adventure in programming as a bonus digital contribution only
accessible to the technically literate. The structure of Cobol
and Lullus's category code are elucidated step by step for the
lay reader in a separate chapter. With a bit of perseverance, we
can then "read" the printout of the program to see how Lullus's
combinations have been translated by Künzel and Cornelius into
computer language.ĐrĐåAccording to Künzel, Lullus designed the first text machine
capable of producing truthful statements. With the help of
connected geometric figures which communicate with each other
according to precisely defined instructions, all possible
statements are generated and placed in character sequences. The
Lullus hardware consists of independently rotating disks, with
nine words or terms on each disk. Together these elements can
form a logically coherent sentence with a question (why, who), a
subject (angel or living being), a "divine attribute" like
strength or virtue, a relational connection (different from,
opposite of), and a good (loyalty, sympathy) or bad trait
(hatred or greed). Lullus then assigned the five categories to
characters, in such a way that if we give the wheel a spin a
certain character sequence rolls out. He then ranged these in
tables. According to Künzel, the software consists of the strict
rules imposed on the interpretation of the letter combinations.
Lullus intended this machine to introduce consistence and
transparence into thought by forcing the user to repeatedly use
the same building blocks, all equipped with clear definitions.
The underlying goal of the Lullus text machine, he says, was the
formulation of universal rules which could cross boundaries and
cultures. It would create knowledge which would also be useful
in "heathen" areas which were not yet christianized.
Künzel discovers a similar goal in the German philosopher
Leibniz (1646-1716). He too, in civil war-torn 17th century
Europe, wanted to design a universal language which would
facilitate communication via a network of universities. Leibniz's
cylindrical computer, never built, signified an important step
forward from dead mechanical calculations to a flexible Ars
Combinatoria, which would differentiate between the feeding in of
data and the calculation itself, according to Künzel. Leibniz
also philosophized about a computer based on a binary numerical
system. In 1679 he wrote, "Despite its length, the binary system,
in other words counting with 0 and 1, is scientifically the most
fundamental system, and leads to new discoveries. When numbers
are reduced to 0 and 1, a beautiful order prevails everywhere."
More important than his design for a computer are Leibniz's
thoughts on monadology. As an "indivisible component of matter or
mind", the monad is technically a space drawn in upon itself,
without windows, apparently completely closed off from the
outside world. Although no images enter, a definite "exchange" of
data nevertheless occurs. Künzel makes a comparison between the
sealed monad and the darkness inside the chips of the Central
Processing Unit.
For Künzel, Leibniz's monad concept (after Deleuze's Le pli)
exhibits an extraordinary timeliness: "Classical philosophy
rejected Leibniz's monad because it was thought to be too rigid
and static. In Hegel, Marx and Adorno the subject is a dynamic
whole which continuously flows and transforms itself. According
to Hegel, there is no substance that is not in motion; nothing
exists which does not dissolve in motion. That partly accords
with our experience, but at the same time we feel restricted.
Our skin and our bodies impose limitations. So we don't have to
take just motion as an assumption; we could also begin with the
poles or the vectors of motion. You could then reason that
individual bodies exist which are indeed constantly communicating
with each other as entities, without being completely absorbed by
it. They do not dissolve, but are connected to each other. We canĐrĐ
then ask ourselves about the nature of contemporary technological
interfaces, what kind of openings or splices they are. The good
thing about the monad concept is that the entity of the
individual as well as its connections with the outside world and
means of communication unite in it. For a long time the Ego was
only part of a dialectical, larger whole. In contrast, the monad
emphasizes possible openings and communication possibilities
which are not established ahead of time by laws.
Leibniz's monad cannot exist without a network. Michel Serres
shows this in "Hermes I" and demonstrates that Leibniz's network
is very economically constructed. Leibniz does not think in
terms of cross-connections. For him all communication moves via
the Divine Central Monad, and functions optimally this way. This
may be inconvenient if there are only two monads, but it's
demonstrably more efficient when a thousand monads are
communicating with each other. The Central Monad then acquires a
technical function and becomes part of a communication model. In
this light, this network doesn't have be dismissed as a rigid,
authoritarian model representing a certain world order or
religion. From our point of view a network needs no interfering
central authority. For us the central switchboard is no more
than a technical necessity, and as an agent of power it
disappears in the background. But for Leibniz, communication had
yet to get underway, and he wanted to organize it. It's still
worth the trouble for the engineer-philosopher to take the
efficiency of this monad model seriously and not write off
everything that was thought of before Hegel."
The monad is also sometimes associated with "cocooning": the
Western telecitizen who locks himself away from the evil outside
world and only stays in contact with others via
telecommunication. It seemed legitimate to me to ask a promotor
of the monad concept whether we are on the eve of a class
struggle between monads and (dataless) nomads. Künzel: "The
technological gulf between population groups and continents is
indeed becoming ever wider. And for a long time the situation
will remain such that the privileged monad will have the choice
of whether or not to use e-mail or fax and the nomad will not.
The equipment has gotten so cheap in the West that it's
affordable for everyone. But that will probably soon become true
of the entire world population - the Walkman is no longer an
exclusively Western consumer good. This will depend heavily on to
what extent urgent problems like hunger and environmental
pollution are solved. What does an Indian in the Amazon area need
a laptop for if his living environment is going down the tubes?
Or people in Africa who have to flee from drought or a civil
war?"
Besides Lullus and Leibniz, Künzel has been interested in the
baroque charlatan/theorist Kircher, who saw Egyptian
heiroglyphics as an arbitrary sign system and raised them to the
level of simulation. Künzel's latest book is devoted to the early
19th century philosopher/engineer Babbage. He designed a computer
and was simultaneously capable of debating with colleagues as a
philosopher and a theologian. Babbage reflected on how creation
could have functioned as a program. But he, too, remained an
outlaw and faded into oblivion.
For Künzel, these studies are merely small puzzle pieces taken
from a great interdisciplinary study into the hidden history of
technology: "In my books I don't criticize the existing divisionĐrĐ
of labour between technology and philosophy in such explicit
terms. Rather, I take the position of the narrator, and add
stones to a mosaic, making it possible to formulate a general
critique. But that can only come about in a group context." This
ambitious project could become Künzel's life's work. But won't
the connection with technology be severed in the process, if for
example he gives up his job at Siemens and submerges into the
archives full-time? The enthusiasm with which he is now so
radically splicing historical texts with contemporary computer
jargon might then fade. The play space of the engineer-philosopher in the modern academic world is still extremely
limited. We must thus resort to nocturnal theoretical escapades
to show us the way through the darkness of the chip.
Werner Künzel/Heiko Cornelius, Die Ars Generalis Ultima des
Raymundus Lullus, Studien zu einem geheimen Ursprung der
Computertheorie, 5th edition, Berlin 1991.
Werner Künzel/Peter Bexte Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Barock-Projekte, Machinenwelt und Netzwerk im 17. Jahrhundert, Berlin
1990.
Werner Künzel, Der Oedipis Aegyptiacus des Athanasius Kircher,
Das Ägyptische Rätsel in der Simulation eines barocken
Zeichensystems, Berlin 1989.
Werner Künzel, Charles Babbage. Differenz-Machinen, Exkurse zur
Karthographie der technischen Kultur im 19. Jahrhundert, Berlin
1991.
Werner Künzel/Peter Bexte, Präsenz, Zeitspeicher und Time
Machines, Essays, Berlin 1991.
These lavishly illustrated books may be ordered from Edition Olivia Künzel, Holsteinsche Str. 37, 1000 Berlin 31, Germany.