Leonardo
On Memory (Electronic or Otherwise)
Author(s): Vilém Flusser
Source: Leonardo, Vol. 23, No. 4 (1990), pp. 397-399
Published by: The MIT Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1575342 .
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GENERAL NOTE
On Memory
(Electronic or Otherwise)
ViMlmFlusser
CULTURAL VERSUS GENETIC MEMORY
If memory is defined simply as information storage (a definition
open to serious objections), then we find memories
all over nature. They float like islands within the general
streamtowardentropy, islandsthatpreserveinformation for
a time before they dissolve. Hydrogen atoms and galaxies
are examples: they constitute negatively entropic epicycles
that sit upon the linear entropic tendency of nature. The
most impressive example of such negatively entropic epicycles
is the biomass that emerged on the surfaceof our planet
a few thousands of millions of years ago, of which we ourselves
are protuberances. The biomass consists of tinydrops
in which information is encoded within complex molecules
being progressively recopied. Errors occur during this
process. Most of them are eliminated from the biomass, the
genetic memory, byverycomplex devices. These errors are
called 'unfeasible mutations'. A few errors escape those
devices, and they constitute what is called 'biological evolution'.
Although our optimistic ancestors (those who
believed in progress) considered this evolutionary change
to be positive because it allowed new information to be
created within the biomass, from the point of view of
memory it must be considered a serious drawback.It shows
that the biomass is not a trustworthy memory: instead of
preserving information it 'processes' it. This processing has
implications for technical projects. Genetic engineering,
which can be defined as the attempt to store acquired
information within the biomass, must take into account that
all information stored there is subject to errors of transmission.
(If genetic engineering were considered an art, and if
the artificial organisms it produces were considered works
of art, these errors of transmission would be both a limitation
and a challenge for artists.)
Cultural memory is shorter than genetic memory, and
even less trustworthy.Human dignity does not merit limitless
admiration. Most of the information we have acquired
has been obliterated from memory; documents have turned
into ashes, buildings have fallen into ruin and veryprobably
whole cultures have been forgotten. When people started
to build a cultural memory (i.e. when they began to create
and maintain sociocultural diversity), they used two typesof
memory supports, or objects that store information. The
first was airwaves in vocalization, the second was stones,
bones and other hard objects. (There may have been other
memory supports in use, like body gestures, but these will
not be considered here.)
Airwavesoffer the advantage that air is easily accessible,
and that the human organism is equipped with organs that
transform airwavesinto phonemes. Speaking comes naturally
to us, although each individual language must
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be learned. (This raises the
question of the dubious relationship
between inherited
and acquired information, i.e.
which part of the information
for walking is inherited and
which part acquired.) Airwaves
have the disadvantage of being
unstable and open to noise;
this deforms the information
stored there. Information
stored within airwaves, oral/
aural information, must be recovered
quickly by a receiver,
stored within a brain and from
there transmitted to other receivers.
This process of 'oral
culture' is subject to numerous
errors of noise-disrupted transmission
and to errorswithin the
brainsof the transmitters.Thus
ABSTRACT
Our speciestransmits
acquiredandinheritedinformation
fromgenerationto generation.
Thisdoublycontradictsnature.
TheSecondPrincipleofThermo-
dynamicsstatesthatinformation
containedwithinnaturetendsto be
forgotten.Livingorganismscontra-
dictthatprinciplebypreserving
andtransmittinggeneticinformiation.Theyconstitutea
memoryin
defianceoftheentropyofnature.
Mendel'sbiologicallawstatesthat
acquiredinformationcannotbe
transmittedfromorganismto
organism.Ourspeciescontradicts
thatlawbyhavinganelaborate
culturalmemory,progressively
storingacquiredinformationto
whichsuccessivegenerationshave
access. Thisdoublenegationof
nature,althoughonlytemporary,
constitutesthehumancondition.
Humandignity,whichdistinguishes
usfromallotherknownbeings,can
bedefinedasthefactthatwehave
botha geneticanda cultural
memory,thatweare'historical
beings'.Humandignitywillacquire
newmeaningas electronicmemo-
riesradicallytransformourcultural
memory.Thisarticleconsiders
someaspectsofthat
transformation.
'oral cultures' are not, strictly speaking, historical ones,
since 'history' means an uninterrupted chain.
Hardobjects have the advantageof being relativelystable.
A stone knife can preserve information about 'how to cut'
for tens of thousands of years. Information stored within
hard objects creates informed objects that constitute our
'material culture'. The disadvantage is that such informed
objects (tools) are used not only as memory supports but
also as data banks:the knife not only keeps information on
'how to cut' but also is used for cutting. The use of the tool
wearsout the information it carries, much like a shoe which
loses its shape with wear. This wear creates the problem of
waste, which is at the center of ecological problems. Disinformed
objects constitute a pernicious type of memory
failure. This is whyobjects that were designed exclusively as
memory supports-that is, not also as tools-came into use.
Such 'monuments' (e.g. the Venuses of Willendorf) avoid
the problem of waste, although subject to the Second Principle
of Thermodynamics, which states that information
contained in nature tends to be forgotten.
FROM ORAL TO LITERATE CULTURE
A very ingenious invention was made relatively recently
(about 3,500 years ago): the alphabet. It is a code used to
Vilem Flusser (educator), Boite Postale 10, Le Vieux Village, F-84440 Robion, France.
Received 2 March 1988.
This article is adapted from a presentation at Ars Electronica, 14 September 1988, Linlz,
Austria.
LEONARDO,Vol. 23, No. 4, pp. 397-399,1990 7
I
transcribethe phonemes of spoken language
into visual symbols that can be
impressed on hard objects. This code
united the advantagesof oral and material
culture. It became possible to create
monuments (texts) that stored the
information of spoken language within
hard objects that could be copied. This
recoding proved very powerful. A cultural
memory was established, the library,
that permitted cumulative
storage of acquired information. This
was the beginning of recorded history
proper. Written language brought
about a radical transformation of
human thinking and acting. The linear
structure of alphabetic writing produced
progressive, causal, 'scientific'
ways of reasoning and action. The acquisition
and storage of information
became a disciplined, self-conscious
process. The invention of the alphabet
may be considered a decisive step
toward the humanization of man from
anthropoid.
As literate culture slowly emerged
from oral and material culture-slowly,
because it had to struggle against previous
oral (mythical) and material
(magic) culture and is still doing soand
as cultural memory became ever
more closely identified with the library,
a curious process of reification and
sacralization of the library developed.
The librarywasnot construed as a store
of acquired information into which we
feed information acquired byourselves
(through writing), and from which we
can recover information acquired by
others (through reading). Rather, it
wasconsidered a superhuman memory
that transcends individuals, hovers over
them, and to which they must aspire.
Thus the role for cultural memory was
inverted:instead of servinghumanity as
storage for acquired information for
future generations, it demanded that
people serve it. This had a profound
effect on all systemsof cultural values.
There are twoprime examples of this
reification and sacralization of the library
as literal memory that inspire
much of what iscalled 'Westernvalues'.
The first uses the model of Platonic
anthropology, which holds man to be
an exile from heaven where the external
ideas are stored. The library(transhuman
memory) ispresented asaspace
(toposuranikos'heavenly place') within
which immutable, eternal information
is stored according to rules of logic.
While, according to Platonic anthropology,
this heavenly store is where we
originally come from, we have fallen
into a world of mere appearances
where all information we acquire is
wrong (doxai'opinions'). While falling
we have crossed the 'river of oblivion'
(lethe), but those waters did not obliterate
heavenly, true information: they
only covered it up, and we must rediscoverit
(a-letheia'dis-oblivion;discovery
of truth'). To know, therefore, is not to
acquire new information but rather to
remember forgotten eternal information.
We can do so thanks to 'theory',
which is disciplined contemplation of
the heavenly library; if we do so we
become immortal.
The second example is Talmudic
in nature: the library (transhuman
memory) is a meeting place where we
can have a dialogue with others. To do
this, we have to open ourselves up to
each other; we have to recognize ourselves
within others and recognize
them as our 'others'. We must 'love
our neighbors'. The extent to which we
recognize our neighbors is the extent
to which they will remain in our memory
and become eternal within us. The
extent to which we ourselves are recognized
by our neighbors is the extent to
which we shallbecome immortalwithin
them. Within the transhuman memory,
the recognition of otherness, we create
the immortality of our 'others'. This
recognition is why memory is blessing
(zikhranahlebrakha'let memory be a
blessing') and why the dead live on
(khayehhamessim'the dead are alive').
To recognize somebody as our other
implies the recognition of otherness, of
that which is entirely different from
us (JHVH 'Jehovah'). To love one's
neighbor implies love of the Entirely
Other. Our neighbor is the only image
of God, and through thatimage we may
contemplate God in all possible splendor.
Thus the transhuman memorythe
library that is the holy script-is
in fact God, in whom we meet to become
immortal through the love of
each other.
These two ideologies, which are
at the root of Western civilization, are
responsible for our existential identification.
We identify ourselves as 'subjects'
(underlings) of the transhuman
memory and thus as subjects of an objective
world. This identification is due
to the fact that we reify our ability to
store acquired information as if that
abilitywere somehow carriedwithin us,
and that we assume this thing within us
to be a kind of emanation from the
superhuman librarythat hovers above
us. Thus, concepts like 'soul', 'spirit'or
even 'ego' acquire an occidental meaning,
namely, the part of ourselves that
is not subject to entropy but to eternal
information storage. As 'bodies' we are
partof the biological world, but as 'spirits'
we are opposed to it; we may know
it, manipulate it and submit it to our
desires.
All the problems of occidental ontology
and epistemology, like the relation
between body and spirit or the
fitting of the 'thinking thing' to the
'extended thing', result from this reification.
Butthere areindications thatwe
are about to overcome this sort of existential
identification and cease to adhere
to the belief in a transcendental
core within us. This change implies a
profound revolution in all our categories
of thought and action.
INFORMATION IN THE AGE
OF ELECTRONIC MEMORY
Electronic memories are simulations,
within inanimate objects, of the memory
functions of the human brain. (A
simulation here means an imitation
that exaggerates a few aspects of the
original while disregarding all the
other aspects. Thus, a lever is a simulation
of the arm:it exaggerates itspower
to lift while disregarding all the other
aspects of the arm.) In electronic
memories the memory function of the
brainistransferredfrom the skullto the
external world.This permitsus towatch
and to manipulate the storage of acquired
information from the outside.
What we thus watch and manipulate is
averysimplified form of brainmemory,
which, in some aspects, performs much
better than our own cerebral organization.
Still,electronic memories provide
us with a critical distance from a simulation
of our ability to store acquired
information; a distance thatwill permit
us, in the long run, to emancipate ourselves
from the ideological belief that
we are 'spiritual beings', subjects that
face an objective world.
The fact that electronic memories
exaggerate some of our memory functions
and thus these functions perform
far better than before will no doubt
have profound effects on future civilization.
Let me briefly mention a few of
these changes. First,electronic memories
can be informed more easily than
cerebral memories, they store information
much longer, and they permit an
easy copying of that information. This
implies thatwe need no longer attempt
to store this information in our braina
hopeless endeavor if we consider the
amount of information currently avail-
398 Flusser,On Memory (Electronic or Otherwise)
able-and that we can instead feed information
to electronic memories. Our
brain will thus be freed for other tasks,
like processing information. The processing
of information is called 'creativity';we
mayexpect averitable explosion
of human creativityonce we have freed
ourselves from all the mechanized
aspects of thinking.
Another change to be expected isthe
coupling of electronic memories with
robots, whereby information is transcoded
into gestures. 'To work' is a gesture
that imposes information on an
object. Forexample, a stone knife is the
result of an imposition of the information
'how to cut' on a stone. Thus, the
gesture of working can be transferred
to automated machines. We shall
become free to 'program' them, to
elaborate the information that will be
fed into an electronic memory and
then transcoded into an actual gesture.
A person will no longer be a worker
(homofaber)but rather an information
processor, a player with information
(homo ludens).
One more change can be expected.
We shall enhance our ability to obliterate
information. Electronic memories
forget more efficiently than do human
memories. The validity of information
is limited in time, and that time is becoming
ever shorter. (For example,
much information concerning the
physical sciences that wasvalid a generation
ago is no longer useful.) Our
brains are burdened with invalid information;
this inhibits us from processing
new, valid information. But electronic
memories permit a progressive accumulation
of information, which will
lead to 'historical thought and action'
in a new and more radical sense. And,
coincidentally, this will show us that
forgetting is just as important a function
of memory as remembering.
Although these expected changes
(and many others that have not been
mentioned) are profound, they do not
go to the root of the present cultural
revolution. The really revolutionary
event is the fact that electronic memories
provide us with a critical distance
with regard to our capacity to acquire,
store and transmit information: what
used to be called our 'spirit'.Our praxis
(manipulations) with electronic memories
force us to admit that memory is
not a thing but a process, whether that
process involves computer hardwareor
our bodies. This praxis forces us to
admit that there is no hard core within
each of uswhich somehow mysteriously
governs that process, but that the
process of acquiring, storing and transmitting
information flows through us
and involves not only all of present and
past society but also the whole of what
we call 'the world'. We are but knots
within a universal network of information
flux thatreceive, process and transmit
information. Our praxis with electronic
memories forces us to admit that
what each of us calls 'I' is a knot of
relations that, when unraveled, reveals
itself to have no hook on which those
relations may hang (like the proverbial
onion).
This breaking out of the shell of individuality,apparent
in our praxiswith
electronic memories, is not a sudden
event; it has been incubating for years
in numerous fields of research. For example,
analytical psychology suggests
thatwhatwe call an individual psyche is
but the tip of an iceberg of a collective
psyche. Ecological studies show that individualorganisms
must be understood
as related functions of an ecosystem.
The study of political science indicates
that 'individual' and 'society' are abstractterms.There
is no individual outside
society, and no society without individuals.
It is intersubjective relations
that areconcrete. This relational (topological)
vision of our position coincides
with the relational vision of the physical
world in the physical and biological
sciences. Physical objects are seen as
knotswithin relational fields, and living
organisms are seen as provisional protuberances
from the mass of genetic
information.
Husserl's phenomenology ispossibly
the most adequate articulation of this
relational vision. He states, briefly, that
what is concrete in the world we live in
is relations, and that what we call 'subjects'
and 'objects' are abstract extrapolations
from these concrete relations.
The ideology of the 'self has been
long to perish. It should have vanished
with psychoanalysis, with neurophysiology,
and with other results which
show that there is no hard core within
us. But this ideology remained until
artificialintelligences were invented. It
can no longer prevail, unless it admits
that machines have 'selves'. Our praxis
with electronic memories forces the
abandonment of the 'self upon us.
CONCLUSION
It is impossible to foresee all the consequences
of such an existential revolution.
But this is certain: if we abandon
the idea of possessing some identifiable
hard core, and if we assume we are
imbedded within a relational network,
then the classical distinction between
'objective knowledge' and 'subjective
experience' will become meaningless.
If intersubjectivitybecomes the fundamental
categoryof thinking and action,
then science willbe seen asa kind of art
(as an intersubjective fiction), and art
will be seen as a kind of science (as an
intersubjective source of knowledge).
Humans are different from all other
known beings in thatthey acquire information,
store it, process it and transmit
it to future generations. This is anti-natural
in that it is against the entropy of
nature. This unique human ability has
been covered up during history by a
dense ideological fog that has prevented
people from making full use of
it. The most pernicious ideology was
the one that led us to believe that we
have (or are) something opposed to nature.
The invention of electronic memories
has given us a critical distance
from this ability;we may now expect a
more conscious use of it. The removal
of ideological oppression will not make
this abilityless mysterious-on the contrary,
the mystery of our anti-entropic
commitment will deepen.
Flusser,On Memory (Electronic or Otherwise) 399