The Alan Sondheim Mail Archive

-


code and protocol: the parasitic vis-a-vis phenomenology of approach


among x and ~x = one inscribes the null set 0 as x^~x - intersection. but
x may be fuzzy; x may also be intended or unintended. if x is unintended,
or non-intended, then x may be protocol. consider roughly three strata:
a. unintended x-protocol: dna or crystal mapping, clays, lindenmayer
algorithms in relation to plant formation. b. intended x-protocol: tcp/
ip, jpeg compression, mpeg encoding, morse, ciphering. by 'intention,' a
reference _only_ to goal-oriented, teleological structuring. note that
intended x-protocols may be secondary-level coding (i.e. tcp/ip) or
primary-level (morse, bacon cipher); in the latter, the text is trans-
lated on a character-by-character basis into code, and in the former, the
text is carried by the code. at best this is a fuzzy distinction. note
that the latter is also an intended non-intended protocol; a better word
might be 'tended'; thus morse code is tended with key translation, but
tcp/ip is automated translation into packets (not into a 'tcp/ip code,'
but through ascii, well maybe the same thing). in intended distinction,
one might say (as one might say in tended non-intended protocol), that the
distinction is parasitic, that the element-between x and ~x - the inscrip-
tion itself - is the result of an intended act or sequence of acts. such
an element-between is dirty, abject, fuzzy, problematic, historically and
ideologically bound.

the element-between is the boundary-phenomena within the phenomenology of
approach; it marks/inscribes the totality of investigation, expenditure,
intention - as well as accompanying debris, and the heuristics necessary
to cleanse the phenomenon itself, [x, ~x].

it is within the element-between that -jectivity: projection/introjection,
plays out. it is from this element, represented as the inscribed boundary
x|~x, that anomaly overrides, that default tags arise. this is the chora-
tic element within the sememe, within semiosis, the generator of meaning,
and meaning's withdrawal.

it is here, {x} <> |P| <> {~x}, that the parasite is manifest - the noise
in the system that _tends towards meaning,_ towards the _maintenance_ of
the inscription. the parasite has everything to gain; as such it is also
_symbiotic_ in relation to x - retaining x for its own ends; the whole
process is an _enunciation._


_