Beyond retrieval? Computer science &

the humanities

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Willard McCartyProfessor of Humanities

ComputingKing’s College London

staff.cch.kcl.ac.uk/~wmccarty/

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CATCH Midterm EventDen Haag

30 November 2007

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TOC

1. Chronology & history2. Very recent attempts3. The humanities and method4. Athens and Jerusalem5. The collective6. The analytic7. The synthetic8. CATCH as catch can

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Edsger Dijkstra (1930-2002)

Roberto Busa (1913--)

Alan Perlis (1922-1990)

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TOC

1. Chronology & history2. Very recent attempts3. The humanities and method4. Athens and Jerusalem5. The collective6. The analytic7. The synthetic8. CATCH as catch can

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2006: dhcs2006.uchicago.edu/ 2007: dhcs.northwestern.edu/

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2006: dhcs2006.uchicago.edu/ 2007: dhcs.northwestern.edu/

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Spooks and Scholars

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TOC

1. Chronology & history2. Very recent attempts3. The humanities and method4. Athens and Jerusalem5. The collective6. The analytic7. The synthetic8. CATCH as catch can

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An unwelcome embrace

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“[T]he specific problem that the [humanities] present to thought is that one has not rightly grasped their nature if one measures them by the yardstick of a progressive knowledge of regularity…. The individual case does not serve only to confirm a law from which practical predictions can be made. Its ideal is rather to understand the phenomenon itself in its unique and historical concreteness.”

Truth and Method (2000/1960): 4f

Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002)

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“For the object of understanding human events is to sense the alternativeness of human possibility.”

“Possible Castles”, Actual Minds, Possible Worlds (1986)

Jerome Bruner (1915--)

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1962

1975

2007

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TOC

1. Chronology & history2. Very recent attempts3. The humanities and method4. Athens and Jerusalem5. The collective6. The analytic7. The synthetic8. CATCH as catch can

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“Quid ergo Athenis et Hiersolymis?”

Quintus Septimus Florens Tertullianus (ca 155-230)

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Henry Adams (1838-1918)

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Hal Burch & Bill Cheswick,

Internet Mapping Project,

18 February 1999

Mayflower, 1642

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TOC

1. Chronology & history2. Very recent attempts3. The humanities and method4. Athens and Jerusalem5. The collective6. The analytic7. The synthetic8. CATCH as catch can

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1. Constructing resources

2. Inventing

new genres

Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England

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TOC

1. Chronology & history2. Very recent attempts3. The humanities and method4. Athens and Jerusalem5. The collective6. The analytic7. The synthetic8. CATCH as catch can

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1. Constructing resources

3. Modelling

of (analytic)

2. Inventing

new genres

Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England

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Analytic modelling

experience

compare

simplify

manipulate

Non-symbolic system

Symbolic system

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Effectively computable representation

“the hem of a quantum garment”

residue

Narrative meaning

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TOC

1. Chronology & history2. Very recent attempts3. The humanities and method4. Athens and Jerusalem5. The collective6. The analytic7. The synthetic8. CATCH as catch can

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1. Constructing resources

3. Modelling

of (analytic)

VR reconstruction: Struder model, St Gall

5.Modelling for

possible worlds

2. Inventing

new genres

Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England

Second Life

4.Modelling

for (synthetic)

Ivanhoe Game

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Autopoiesis in art: “Drawing hands”, M. C. Escher (1948)

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TOC

1. Chronology & history2. Very recent attempts3. The humanities and method4. Athens and Jerusalem5. The collective6. The analytic7. The synthetic8. CATCH as catch can

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