MYTHOS ALGORITHMOS

BÄCHLE

We suspect that it would be enough for math to be an angel;

but to practice biology — even with the help of the mind
— we sometimes have to feel like animals.

Georges Canguilhem, Knowledge of Life (1952)

The idea for this work can best be summarized in two very general observations: firstly, knowledge of
human beings is always only the product of certain technologies, and secondly, this fabrication of
knowledge (Knorr Cetina 1984) follows a historically specific cultural logic. The thesis of the work is
that the logic of the current patterns of knowledge and perception of man, his knowledge and self-
knowledge, is the algorithm. The human being created in this algorithmic logic has a life that is
programmable in genetic information and can be manipulated by re-sequencing. The processing of the
genome as a life code produces his life, yes, that is the very essence of life. This person has a formalized
body with functional processes that are normal or pathological. He is diagnosed and treated, his
condition is causally attributed to causes, or a future course is predicted. This body has become a
formalized and controllable entity. At the same time, the body of this person loses the functions ascribed
to it because it seems to be replaceable by technologies such as communication media or robotics. The
identity of this person can also be described in formal categories, explained causally, diagnosed as
normal and pathological, treated, treated and optimized. The consciousness of this person works like a
computer, it can be copied in artificial intelligence, and finally transferred to it. This person's brain is a
code processing machine. It can be read, controlled and reproduced. This person finally dissolves as a
unity and unfathomable secret and is only the product of certain symbolic representations and practices.
His life, thinking, identity, consciousness can be fully understood and controlled. Hope for progress
alternates with a fear of the loss of the human and its nature, the total substitution in the technical. This
formalized person forms the lens through which we observe each other. It is the product of the myth
algorithm.
The logic of the algorithm initially seems to adequately describe the human phenomenon, the
functioning of man - his life, his nature, his consciousness, etc. - as a universally formalizable one. The
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proximity to technology seems obvious when the genes are a manipulable code; the brain is a functional
control unit processing information; Identity and qualities that can be externalized even in digital proxy
identities; the body is technically substitutable with prosthetics and robotics or appears to be resolvable
without loss in digital avatar representations. The phenomenal areas of natural human and artificial
technical seem to be converging: a development for which in the past two decades terms such as
convergence, hybridization, cyborg, co-evolution, artificial people, artificial intelligence or artificial life
have become theoretical allegedly new phenomena was developed. The diagnosed hybridization is
accompanied by the uncertainty in the light of collapsing dichotomies, which mean the loss of formerly
'pure' and 'untouched' areas: nature / culture, man / machine, subject / object, life / death.
The impression is created that today man is in the historically unique position of being able to create
himself and control his nature for the first time. Nature and technology meet and eventually dissolve. As
will be shown in this work, however, it is above all the specific access to the observation of humans that
first constructs them as a unit that can be universally formalized and replaced by technology. 'Novelty' -
and the debates about the convergence of people and technology are conducted in the self-conception of
originality - is itself never more than a historically relative concept. Every generation understands
technological change and the resulting social and anthropological upheavals as a historically unique
constellation (Marvin 1990). As will be shown, however, the person who can be dissolved in technology
is no more than the product of a specific observation of the person in the paradigm of a culture technique
that is always historically specific (Kuhn 1967). The basic principle of this knowledge production is the
idea of formalizing and formalizing the world, which only allows the phenomena to be interpreted in
terms of the logic on which they are based. This logic - so the thesis of the work - is determined by the
cultural technology of the computer, the logic of the algorithm, which becomes the universal pattern of
interpretation and thus becomes a specific person. The fabrication of human knowledge and self-
knowledge are products of this logic. It is the myth of our time.
Theoretical location and model development
The logic of the algorithm can be found in the images of humans, which give the illusion of its basic
algorithmization: humans as a system that can be represented, formalized, copied, simulated and (re)
produced functions without loss. In this work, the myth is to be developed as a model that shows the
production of knowledge about people who can be formalized. The myth is suitable as a model in so far
as it is a system of universal and non-traceable world interpretation, which organizes human being in
terms of technology and nature. The knowledge produced in the myth is a narrative that does not
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differentiate between objective scientific facts, literary fictions or everyday knowledge. The model
developed here combines various theoretical ideas:
(a) Discourse theory: In his order of things, Foucault distinguishes three dimensions of knowledge.
The scientific-mathematical, the analogous and causal relationship and the philosophy: "After all,
the philosophical dimension defines a common level with that of the mathematical disciplines:
that of formalizing thought" (Foucault 1974a, 416). To think of people means to bring out the
essence of a certain unit of man with specific functions - according to a mathematical
formalization. The order of knowledge that will be dealt with in this work and through which
man is constructed is the algorithmic process logic. (b) Actor-network theory (ANT): Inspired by
the collapse of the dichotomies subject / object, fact / fiction, nature / culture or human /
technology in the models of the ANT, the idea of the circulating reference is adopted. A system
of meaning is obtained through certain symbolic translation services, an insight is generated
performatively through an act of knowledge. A material unity is always seen with the glasses of
a certain meaningfully formed expectation and interpreted accordingly. Matter - such as the
human body - is therefore always symbolic because it is always given meaning through its
observation. (c) Observer constructivism in systems theory: Observation means the construction
of the observed unit, the distinction between the observed object and its environment. In order to
be able to take place sensibly, observation already requires a semiotic schema of perception, a
system of representations. The supposed knowledge about how people work determines their
perception. This system of knowledge is provided by the myth. (d) Structuralistic-linguistic myth
model: Roland Barthes ’myth gives order to the system of representations and maps the patterns
of knowledge and perception of constructive observation. (e) Symbolic interactionism and
performativity: perception is not only constructed in representations, but creates a meaningful
reality in the concrete actions of co-present social actors. These actions are also seen as
formalized; performativity is the processing of an algorithm. (f) Gottlob Frege's philosophy of
language: The 'logic of truth' - including that of truth about people - binds this to a mathematical
functional logic of meaning. This idea of a logic of truth should be expanded to include the idea
of formalized actions. The algorithm is thus developed as the central figure of the 'logic and
performance of truth'.
2. The algorithmized person - the application of the model
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The developed model of the myth algorithm is to be applied in the second part to different discourses
of production and reproduction of representations and practices constructing the unity of man.
According to the thesis, human life, his self and his body as well as his consciousness are designed
according to a model logic determined by the algorithm. Observing people, thinking and speaking
about them, even 'being yourself' and 'being human' seem to be universally formalized. Man is the
product of formalized processes. His thinking, feeling and acting is reduced to the pervasive cultural
logic of formalization, we all execute algorithms.
3. Negativity and indeterminacy as areas of symbolic freedom:
Where does the algorithm fail? - To outside the model
In the third part, which concludes the work, questions should be asked about the areas that may
elude the formalizability of the algorithm logic: Where is a 'pure' experience possible, a perception
that is beyond the universal formalizability? The model of the myth meaning system proposed here,
like all system theoretical models, knows an outside. This outside is chaos and freedom alike, which
can only exist if experience (which cannot yet differentiate between self and world) occurs before its
symbolic representation and pre-formation. The areas of bodily sensations, sexual desire, the
experience of pain, but also the intoxication experience with its climax, ecstasy, provide traces for
such experiences. Can there be an experience that is beyond the reach of universal formalization, an
outside of the myth algorithm?