Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
difficulty in the complexities of dynamic storage management. On parallel
machines we observe it in the complexities of shared-memory management.
Pointers also cause algorithmic complexity. Just as you can write symbols on
paper in any order, a pointer can point at anything. As a result, algorithms for
the manipulation of symbolic pointer-structures often suffer from the combi-
natorial arbitrariness of the objects they reason with.
If writing is a good metaphor for symbolic representation, then, it is not
because we have things in our heads that are object-like, passive, static, struc-
tured, visible, and portable. These properties of writing don't help us to un-
derstand human use of symbolic representation
in general
because they are the
properties of written texts that are
specific to written texts
.Farfrompickingout
the essence of symbolic representation, they dwell on the physical activity of
using a written text: inscribing, gathering, comparing, storing, and destroying.
The invention of writing was important precisely because it permitted these
useful forms of activity.
Writing as representation
How, then, can writing serve as a model of symbolic representation? Imagine
that you're using a recipe - that is, a recipe on paper - to help you cook dinner.
Orperhapsyou'reusingsomedirections-again,onpaper-tohelpyouget
to a party. The paper has a paradoxical position. Even though it's a physical
object with a definite size, mass, and location, it plays its role - at least qua rep-
resentation - entirely through your interpretation. And even though it seems
to offer opinions about the particulars of the situation, it only does so because
you figure out what in your surroundings it's talking about.
The paper in your hand is both part of the material situation and doubly
removed from it. It underdetermines the sense you make of it because it is sepa-
rate from you - after all, someone else in the same situation would probably do
something different. And it underdetermines what in the situation it picks out
because you are separate from your surroundings - after all, it would probably
be useful in other situations as well. A similar argument then applies, not just
to notes written on paper, but to all symbolic representations: their meaning
must be completed in the act of use (Ingarden 1973). The world does not come
innately parceled out into the categories we find mentioned in written texts. In-
stead, people use representations to help them make sense of particular situa-
tions. What a given text is talking about is a fresh problem in every next setting.
(For those who care about such things, this is what Jacques Derrida means by
the word “writing”. For introductions to Derrida's philosophy see Culler (1982)
