Reply to comment

 We (Marina and Merlin) Led a class activity today, in which we tried to illustrate a particular aspect of the transformation of information. Our goal was to look at the critical distinction between observations and interpretations..

Question:

HOW Can you interpret something created by code and algorithms?

Our main argument (both of us being the Psych people we are ;) was that in the transmission of information, or mind is programmed to automatically and subconsciously make interpretations about the world around us... even if the information we are looking at is in a totally random configuration created by computer algorithms and code. In order to exercise this hypothesis with the class, we chose to fool around with an online software called Thinkzone on which one can enter a bunch of words and the website will spit out a poem. While some of us saw randomness in the output of this experiment, others noticed our minds creating an interpretation and analysis of what the computer gave us. Some of the poems were just bizarre, while others were really quite funny! 

How much information is out there that our brains our interpreting as having some sort of meaning when it is in fact completely random?  Life itself is random and chaotic yet we are still able to discern meaning from our everyday experiences. At its core, the brain is a pattern maker and excels at taking random information and putting it into some sort of order. These randomly generated poems can foreground this unique trait of the human brain as select poems the class came up with seem bizarre at first but once one looks closer, it is possible to interpret them and come up with some sort of meaning. 

If we were to expand our argument to the course at large, we’d draw parallels between this hyper-analysis of information and the “readings” of literature. Take for example all of the readings of Marry Shelly’s Frankenstein, for example. There is a plethora of feminist interpretations alone! Maybe all of the various interpretations of these poems can serve as a model explanation as to why virtually every well-known work of literature has had endless interpretations of meaning. There is not “right interpretation” just as there is not correct interpretation or “good” poem in this exercise. It doesn’t seem that anything of spontaneous creation can have applied to it qualifiers such as good or bad.

HERE’S THE LINK TO THE COOL POEM GENERATOR!...

http://thinkzone.wlonk.com/PoemGen/PoemGen.htm

HERE ARE THE POEMS WE MADE IN CLASS...=D

Tiffany’s group
Gender is a large cyborg.

Transition closely like a intelligent transexual.

Where is the small cyborg?

Gender, meaning, and dimensions.

Informations game like small informations.

Poem 1

Ah, binary!

Die roughly like a small robot.

Old, dead gulls

quietly

roughly create a warm, heteronormative robot.

Gender is a small cloud.

Poem 2

All waves fight heteronormative, old pirates.

Mainlands endure like gay gulls.

Gender is a big mast.

Never fight a wave.

Poem 3

Die

quietly

roughly like a queer robot.

Cyborgs die!

Why does the tuna grow?

Heteronormative, small mainlands quietly fight a old, clear lass.

Action, noise, and noise.

Where is the fast rain?

Never shove a light.

Transgender, Straight Interfaces Quickly Command a Queer Frankenstein.

Why does the Game Exchange?

Trons Exchange like Bi Interfaces.

Where is the dead machine?

Lord, relationship!

Where is the rough cyborg ?

Grow calmly like a small computer.

Why does the computer grow?

All computers love rough, warm webs.

Why does the gender evolve ?

Never love a robot.

Why does the gender grow?

Small, old robots quietly love a misty, old binary.

Wow, experience !

BlackBerrys travel!

Information, creation , and experience .

Where is the misty computer?

SOME OF OUR OWN COMPUTER-GENERATED POEMS...

The Lady Gaga Hyper-reads like a androgynous Science.

The Grid, Entanglement, and Entanglement.

Entanglement is a coded Mary Shelly.

Never Techno-lust a Cyborg.

The Grid is a sexualized Creature.

The sexualized Mary Shelly quietly Techno-lusts Anne.

Lizs Genderize like androgynous Sciences.

Intersex is a cysgendered Lady Gaga!

Never think Information .

Oooooh, binary!

Why does the Sperm Genderize?

Transgendered, androgynous MITs creatively think a cys-gendered, coded Science.

The coded Information  mechanically Skypes the Technology.