Re: <nettime> Proposition on Peak Data

[Joseph Rabie <joe@overmydeadbody.org>]

The denunciation of Big Data published by Geert Lovink a few weeks ago continues to fidget uncomfortably in my mind (as with Carlo, it would seem). While Geert makes a convincing case for throwing off the tyrannical shackles that data enslaves us with, his position is very much absolutist. He does not propose a categorisation of data typologies, that might allow one to distinguish between what is harmful, and what has proven to be helpful. The condemnation is categoric. And while Geert does not appear to call for the abolition of all data, he definitely considers it a negative thing whose place in society must be severely curtailed.

This assertion of the globally negative nature of data has been the occasion for some contradictory musings on my part. Is data part of the capitalistic-industrial complex that is destroying the planet, as Geert writes? Or does it have redeeming features, or much more than that, can one possibly consider data as being a component of the “natural” order of things?

There are continual comparisons between how the mind handles data and the way computers do it. It has been pointed out, for instance, that the workings of the mind itself is algorithmic in nature. And while this is presented as a “revelation” (pleasant or unpleasant), it should not come as a surprise, since humans clearly invented computers in our own image. Or at least in the image of rational, technical reasoning, that dimension of our psychic existence that is readily replicated by the execution of a computer programme. The computer provides an abstract, conceptual environment capable of mediating human interpretations of things, in which data plays a primordial role.

It’s this comparison between the mind and the computer that incites a coterie of hyper-wealthy individuals to espouse the technicist myth of a so-called singularity, achieving a sufficiently sophisticated computer that will enable them to upload the contents of their brain, somehow translating neuron-data into digital data. After which they’ll be able to live forever, released from the limitations of their naturally degrading bodies.

Harari wrote critically about this in “Homo Deus”, pointing out the spurious conceit of such an endeavour, because we have no scientific grasp on the nature of consciousness, which will not be transferred magically into the machine. Human minds are endowed with meaning, while so-called artificial intelligence makes calculations whose very meaning needs an alive human being in order to be understood.

It’s the question of data in the cosmos that is so fascinating. The natural world is more than a duality between matter and energy. Data exists naturally, to the point that it would not be exaggerated to characterise the universe as being composed of a trilogy: matter, energy and data.

For the moment, the only natural data we know of is biodata. This is so with neurons stocking and manipulating the myriad informations that occupy each of our heads, as evoked above. Maybe in this respect consciousness is just an operating system, in a mechanistic view of our psyches. Or maybe speculation about the existence of a human soul are founded, who knows! Apart from thought processing information wilfully, our body uses data to function (move about, run itself, process food and energy, repair itself…).

What goes beyond this is how biodata in the form of genetic code defines us as creatures (and all other creatures), how it contains the blueprint that specifies us as organisms in enormously sophisticated detail. How at the moment of inception is set into action a programme (an application?) that goes about “automatically” executing the fabrication of what nine months later will constitute a viable human being.

From the point of view of our current level of scientific knowledge, such a process that uses energy to convert data into living matter appears to be miraculous.

Best wishes -
Joe.



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