M1:on coding/ lecture by Vera Bühlmann
This lecture will start with the assumption that the mediation between narratives and numbers happens by coding. It will introduce a basic problem involved in any concrete, real-world application of a numerical model: namely the problem of how to turn a symbolical calculus into a significant one. I will suggest that historically, there had been two common stances in dealing with this extra-systemical reference involved in this problem, those of symbolization and construction.
Symbolization, so I would like to suggest, arranges an abstract setting that is arbitrary in its set-up, and that relies in order to function well (i.e. turn something on which we can count into something that is also significant to us) on the belief in it. Construction, on the other hand, arranges an abstract setting that is not arbitrary but necessary in its specific set-up, relying as it does on mechanical functioning.
The argument put forward in this lecture is that the construction approach is a way of dealing with extra-systemical reference only on the basis of naturalizing things that have been symbolized previously, by articulating them categorically, specifically. A special emphasis will be put on the relation between measurement and coding, and the space of medialization that opens up in-between. How can we think about construction that does not rely on naturalizing things but on medializing them? How can we think about construction within the symbolic?
Constructing within the symbolic: a thought experiment pdf
Listen to the lecture here: