git ssb

title: About the blog's title date: 2007-07-16 23:26 series: Walking Dataloss

tags: Björk, meta, robots, the Flaming Lips, Walking Dataloss

<p>There was a TV advert recently—I <em>think</em> it was for an optician, though it might've been for a camera—in which a person walks through a forest, with Polaroid-type photos dropping behind them every few paces. The point was that we see so many images even over the course of just one day, but remember just a tiny fraction of this. You can generalise that to the other senses as well.</p>
<p>For example, a human can see at a rate of about ten frames per second, so over twelve hours one sees more than four hundred thousand images. And we remember <em>none</em> of them. I mean: we filter these images and extract facts from them, but then we forget the actual <em>image</em>. Even if we consciously <em>try</em> to remember the image, memories are imperfect and some subtleties are always changed or lost. (Animals make rubbish eyewitnesses.)</p>
<p>After a split-second review of each of these innumerate sensations, to extract the juiciest titbits, the brain simply discards all of them. There's decay intrinsic in every perception an animal makes.</p>
<p>In the world of software geekery, a “dataloss” bug (problem or error) is one that causes some of the user's information to be lost. It occurred to me that this advert was expressing a continual state of dataloss. It's one of the fundamental aspects of what's often called “the human condition” (although I should make it clear that I think this applies beyond just humans).</p>
<p>A lot of science fiction stories involving robots—for example—<em>contrast</em> those robots with their human (and roughly-human) counterparts, by having the robots be “perfect”. Flawless memory; absolute objectivity (the absence of emotions influencing decisions); and limitless accuracy and precision in almost every respect are hallmarks of the science fiction robot. (This isn't particularly contrived, as these are attributes that the fictional robots share with real-life computers.)</p>
<p>Often this “perfection” extends to an inability to feel emotions, usually love. While the robots are lauded for their impeccable grasp of the factual, they can simultaneously be pitied for their lack of a “deeper” experience of life, beyond the “merely” factual. (My suggestion that there <em>is</em> something “deeper” than the “merely factual” already assumes that there's more to life than pure facts.)</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Is it wrong to say it's love when it tries the way it does?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>—<cite>The Flaming Lips, “One More Robot / Sympathy 3000-21”</cite></p>
<p>It's concluded that in fact the robots' “perfection”, while ostensibly useful, is also a <em>shortcoming</em>. Imperfection is highlighted and <em>celebrated</em> as being intrinsic to humans' nature—constant dataloss is a fundamental part of life.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There's definitely, definitely, definitely no logic to human behaviour.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>—<cite>Björk, “Human Behaviour”</cite></p>
<hr>
<p>I used “Dataloss” in the title rather than “decay” because dataloss is usually seen as being actively induced and thus preventable. Decay is more of a continuous, natural, inevitable process; I wanted to challenge dataloss's preventability. Besides, the latter has connotations of rotting flesh that I didn't want to encourage.</p>
<p>The “Walking” half of the title is the best way I could find to succinctly express the idea that people <em>are</em> dataloss (although, of course, I don't mean that they literally are). I'm also using it to illustrate the idea that what seems to be the most straightforward way to say something often comes loaded with assumptions. Here it's assumed that discussion is naturally restricted to concerning <em>humans</em> and no-one else, and that all humans can (or do) walk.</p>
<p>There should be a conclusion here... ...So! “Walking Dataloss” manages to cover the blog's main thrusts, “decay, perception and dodgy assumptions”, pretty succinctly.</p>