BIBLIPEDIA

Dialectics of Determinism

Calvino is a brilliant writer whether he is conjuring a fictional universe or when, as here, he brings his imagination to bear on the practice of writing itself.

In the essay, Cybernetics and Ghosts, actually a lecture delivered in 1967, he tackles head on the issue of computationally-produced literature. He uses the argument I feel most resonance with, which reminds us that human authors are really not much better than machines.

Human language is itself a discrete combinatorial system no less than any algorithm a machine might be induced to follow; and the writer himself is little more than a conduit for language, rather than the originator of novel art.

Whether discussing the finite algorithms of life (DNA) or the wealth of human discourse (literature), Calvino notes:

The processes that appeared most resistant to a formulation in terms of number, to a quantitative description, are now translated in mathematical patterns.

The essay decentres our notions of the Romantic author and the primacy of human agency; and of course provokes us to wonder about the future of human / machine collaboration.

Tags: algorithm authorship electronic literature machine narrative

Note posted by: joe soap, the hopeless hobo on Mon 16 Feb 09

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