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THE ORACLE MACHINE
Eleonora Maria Irene Oreggia

A razão do mundo não está nas palavras, meninã!

They were not entirely happy.
I saw no reason for their unhappines;
but I was deeply affected by it.
If such lovely creatures were miserable,
it was less strange that I, an imperfect
and solitary being, should be wretched.
Mary Shelley. Frankenstein. 1818.

When the abyss looks at me
My main question concerns the dynamics of 'decision making' in contemporary urban globalized societies, starting from the opposition and differentiation between primitive and industrial decision making. In post-modern world decision making appears to be more controversial, as it can also be interpreted as a merchandise in itself (the trade in decisions); the homogenization of commodities, space and place, the deformation of perception generated by fast communication and low cost travelling, are multiplying the possibilities of action, and this widening of possibilities is provoking dismay and disorientation in individuals. In some primitive and contemporary societies, and in certain religions, this abyss of uncertainty is surpassed through the use of tools, which mediate the relation with supernatural entities. It is not objective of this speculation the demonstration of any ontological status of such entities, or the legitimacy of the use of tools, because in fact the element granting the success of any divination is faith, which goes beyond ratio and the cause / effect principle. // If instinct and the relation with natural ambient and environment are at risk, humans are still living in a open Universe, assuming scientific development historically decreed the metaphysical drama of the "death of God", in the sense that science and religion do not interweave anymore a hierarchic relation, whereas in the past religion tried to subordinate scientific achievement to its assumptions. Echoing Shakespeare, the question is: why does it take so long for Hamlet to act? Hamlet is in the trap: human beings are excessive (they are not anymore the centre of the Universe), the order from cosmos to senseless infinite has lost its subject, it is time for comprehension, and the Self disappears in the symbolic: universal laws govern and describe relations and cosmic constitutions, language and social structures. The point of subjectivity is lost: relations between elements exist beyond the elements themselves. // Uncertainty appears, on the other side, as a constitutional predicate of human beings. According to Jacques Lacan, anxiety is induced by the loss of the Ego, and it can be defined as that affect whose object is unknown. Thus the decision processes I am interested in are not necessarily crucial or critical, but are, rather and more precisely, those which engender anxiety and a loss of the capability of judgment, will, and liberum arbitrium. The relation with multiple possibilities and the question of undecidability is providing a further perspective on this unknown object, which nothing else is if not the Self, lost in the reflecting mirrors to outher dimensions, establishing a kaleidoscopic relation with its own projection, and the Self becomes unknown.

Undecidability
Approaching such critical point from a multi-disciplinary perspective, my aim is to study the phenomenon of "undecidability" from general, physical, mathematical, and metaphysical point of view in order to contextualize the social impact that such mechanisms may have on individuals. As a practitioner artist, I am going to develop and transform the abstract theoretical reflections and the speculation in the following, practical way: I will build seven machines, each based on a peculiar implementation of a software I am writing capable of making decisions for people. In this sense, my study is not only trying to analyse the phenomenon, because it is proposing an instrument which can be used both to solve the problem of decision making, and to gather information on humans and their relation with others, themselves, and the surrounding world.

Alan Turing and the book of change
The main references for the research underlying the development of this software are Alan Turing, father of modern computer science, and the I Ching or 'Book of Change'. Alan Turing was the first to introduce the concept of 'oracles' in machine theory, in his PhD thesis, where he introduced the notion of relative computing; this was further explored in his later investigations, where the ‘oracle’ becomes the element able to perform, as if by magic, an uncomputable operation. An oracle is infinitely more powerful than anything a modern computer can do: Turing defined ‘oracle-machines’ as machines with an additional configuration in which they ‘call the oracle’ so as to take an uncomputable step. These oracle-machines are not purely mechanical: they are only partially mechanical, like Turing's choice-machines. Indeed the whole point of the oracle-machine is to explore the realm of what cannot be done by purely mechanical processes and to bring to possibility of logic functioning one step further. The other reference, the Chinese classic text called I Ching (or The book of Change), is a symbol system used to identify dynamic tendencies in the transforming of events. The text describes an ancient system of cosmology and philosophy that is deeply rooted in archaic Chinese culture. The cosmology centres on the idea of the dynamic balance of opposites, the evolution of events as processes, and the acceptance of the inevitability of change. Based on a combinatory system of two main symbols, the continuous line or the broken line, the 64 symbols show a constant modification and unstable configurations, which can be interpreted, in a sense, as deferring an absolute formalization; this metamorphic structure and its intrinsic binary representation make it one of the first structured binary languages. Both Turing's Oracles and the I Ching are systems that manifest at a level above that of logic, they appeal to a level of inscrutability which calls upon supernatural intervention, a 'Deus ex-machina' to take us humans out of our impasse. In this sense, both software and I Ching are systems of logic which can appeal to a higher sphere (one that is perhaps understandable as supernatural) to overcome human limits.

Formalism and trust
What we learn from our everyday experience in the technologic world of comfort and commodities, is that machines are intrinsically different from humans. First of all, they are honest: machines are not programmed to lie to people, and, whenever they make a mistake, they would declare it. Whereas humans tend to deny or hide mistakes, machines pre-emptively advise us of any possible error. Thus, when we learn how to use machines, we learn how to trust machines. Living in a open Universe, living in a open and relative Universe, we are exposed to a wide variety of syndromes: whereas we do not have faith, still we trust machines. The machinic identity, its properties and predicates, do make machines closer and more similar to supreme, supernatural entities. But machines are also tools. It is common belief that when humans do not understand what technology is doing, then magic is happening. There are many points of contact between a theory of magic and software mechanisms: both magic and software are formalistic, imply spells and the use of tools, involve numbers and formulas, repetition and loops, and minimal representation. Both magic and software cannot be wordless, they imply transformation, transmutation, a change of state, some result, and a main effect, or event. Between a wish and its fulfilment there is, in magic, no gap, just the time to process the receipt. My references for a general theory of magic are Marcell Mauss and Bronislaw Malinowski. I analysed the structures of magic as they delineate them, comparing it with the constitutional functioning of software.

Generative semiotics and the structuralist method
To approach the symbolic system of I Ching, I use the instruments of the generative semiotics of the 'Paris School', which is based on that linguistic tradition originated from De Saussure and Hiemslev, and whose most representative member is Algirdas Greimas. According to the generative hypothesis, semiotics is the study of systems and processes of signification. The basilar postulate is that the signification of a text can be articulated in different levels, from the most abstract to the concrete, along the 'generative trajectory'. The instruments of semiotics are useful to study not only the field of action in its specific sense, rather that of transformation and deviation of this action, following a conception, at least for what semiotics of Greimasian influence is concerned, which interprets the act starting from its intrinsic strategic nature. According to the semiotic perspective, every subject taking part in a interaction is composed of different functions, which are progressively filled of different modal propositions and values, that are 'will', 'have to', 'can', 'know', 'believe', 'be', and 'make'; such modalities, inherited from linguistics, can constitute different combinations forming a subject which can be described as a multiplicity of agents accomplishing different plans of action. In this sense, subjectivity is not a compact and monolithic structure, because the stratification of the subject is constituted of different layers and levels interweaving a dynamic balance, thus the interrelation among subjectivities is interpreted by semiotics as a 'polemic' exchange of fluctuating modalities that are components of action. The binary conception conceives the constitution of languages, up to the construction of sense and signification, through differences: sense would not be given in any positive and atomistic manner, but through disparity and relations between differences. Any value, or component, that constructs a significate, would be given by the difference in relation to another value. This structuralist method, which represents my back-ground from the University of Bologna, will be the main tool I will use to extract matrixes, patterns and paradigms of operational functioning that I will translate in algorithmic language and software, in order to construct a back engine (that of the software) whose operational method is not random, statistic, or simply logic, but over logic, in the sense that: it appeals to magic structures, it is promising a positive effect, it requires trust and, especially, it waves the responsibility of the action on the entity Machine.

Calculus Ratiocinator
If we cannot separate our brain from language, and we cannot separate language from symbolic systems, then symbols appear to be intrinsecaly connected to our brain, and our capability of thinking. Whereas, according to the traditional vision of that branch of Computer Science named Artificial Intelligence, the question whether computers can think is still under discussion - although surpassed by the reality of simulation and by neural networks and gigantic databases - the idea of automated systems able to produce and generate thought through the use of a set of rules and the combination of symbols recalls an ancestral dream of humanity, that of a mechanical system able to create a process which could be less ephemeral, impalpable, and detouched by the question of the Soul, and the Mind, be that dualistically separated from a physical body, or else, be the trace of thinking phenomena manifesting the presence of that Soul which was discuss over centuries. Can animal think? Can machines think? Is the question whether machines can think a camuffage for a more metaphysical question around the presence of a presumed Soul connected to the body of those machines which we can define as calculators, or computers. I think the followers of a classical approach to Artificial Intelligence in the 90ies where convinced of the fact that some machines can learn and then also think. I can recall the anectodote of a Professor from the University of Bologna showing the one computer he was breeding since many years, and talking about 'him' as a living creature. So the question was 'are computers alive'? I tend to paste the whole question to the problem of the redefinition of gender which is often, in current years, draw near that of 'women and technology', which is somehat manipulated by a certain victimism which should be rejected. Outside a static structure, it is always genarating new thoughts the possibility to rethink concepts in relation to one another; thus the machinic identity can be semantically opposed to humanity and to animality. When we have three fields of sense, then the internal articulation can be reconsidered at another level: is there a substancial difference in the relation female-human to machine and male-human / machine? Is it still relevant? I hazard the obvious hypothesis that gender is related to those three fileds since the female male distinction seems so uncomfortable and outdated to the most. And obviously the real trans-gender is the one who can surpass the limits of those domains engendering a new identity, that of the monster. And, if Frankenstein is one of the first to transgender humans and machines, monstrous creatures half human and half animal constitute a constant fantastic and mythical element of human culture. Dragons and unicorns are, as Husserl defined, following Frege's distintion between sense and denotation, noemata, non existing figures that are present to our understanding, as they represent something for us. There is another domain which come into mind when we start to recall mythology and poetic traditional thinking, that of the Daemon, which is the entity bridging between Divinity and Humanity, supernatural beings between mortals and gods, such as inferior divinities and ghosts of dead heroes. Thus the domains may be considered as four, whereas noemata and immaterial entities are included, and where belief and imagination are considered relevant to construct an abstract ontology. Another conjunction, a further monstruosity is that of the the God and the Machine, or, as defined in the antique play, the Deus ex Machina, a plot device functioning as an extreme intervention to help a character to overcome a seemingly insolvable difficulty.
Leibniz in his monograh 'Dissertatio de Arte Combintoria' described and analysed in detailes his idea of a special alphabet whose elements represented not sounds, but concepts. The idea was to create a system in which symbols could 'magically' produce correct answers to problems almost unaided. The power of appropriating mathematical symbolism in order to create a language that would also be an efficient instrument of calculation, one that would enable logical inferences to be carried out systematically by the direct manipulation of symbols, which could enable logical inferences and the automatization of thought, so to create a distance and a objectification of thinking which could generate a an-human discourse, a mechanical and machinic truth, or an authomated consciousness. As if, from a set of rules and a grammar and a syntax and a powerful machine knowledge could develop further reflecting on itself.

Each monad follows a pre-programmed set of "instructions" peculiar to itself, so that a monad "knows" what to do at each moment. (These "instructions" may be seen as analogs of the scientific laws governing subatomic particles.) By virtue of these intrinsic instructions, each monad is like a little mirror of the universe. Monads need not be "small"; e.g., each human being constitutes a monad, in which case free will is problematic.

Insolvability

Infinite Databases

The scent of a machine

Capitalism and metaphysics

“I expect that digital computing machines will eventually stimulate a considerable interest in symbolic logic... The language in which one communicates with these machines... forms a sort of symbolic logic.” Alan Turing.

For any number there exists a corresponding even number which is its double. Hence the number of all numbers is not greater than the number of even numbers, the whole is not greater than the parts. Leibniz.

Metaphysicians of Meaning: Russell and Frege on Sense and Denotation (International Library of Philosophy) (Paperback) by Gideon Makin

The oracle as a social machine
If theory has the power to inspire, instruct and stimulate art, still creative thinking is a separate domain which follows outer structures, those of intuition and vision, whereas a metaphor is enough to demonstrate a concept, and a suggestion has the same power of a theorem. If this work starts from a critical perspective, from an analysis of society where security, free will, manipulation and pre-determined lives are observed, its development surpasses pure criticism to imagine a system to heel and express a form of disease, that of our uncertain, and unexplained, state of existence.

If the work of art is showing but not explaining, in order to create a space for reflection and doubts, what can this speculation add to clarify the topic?

First of all the Oracle is a 'topos' which is present throughout history in very diverse cultures, climates, and languages. It appears, thus, as a archetypal figure of human culture, one which can easily gain the same ontological status of what Frege calls Noemata, potentially existing or non existing entities which are present to our mind. The purpose to create an Oracle as an art project may seem bizarre on a first place, because the idea at the base is that a human cannot do such machine, and the action may be outrageous. If we try to decompose in minimal components what an Oracle is, in very general terms, we will, first of all, analyze the root of the word, which means in fact 'word': the relation with text is central; humans are using oracles and humans have developed a special method for communicating, they use in fact a symbolic language composed of sounds, represented by letters, and the combination of groups of sounds to create words, and the combination of words to create sentences, paragraphs, poems, books and so on. This register, which may remember a Mandelbrot pattern, is one of the constituent of the essence of humanity. We have a number of subsequent encryption, and decryption, and the natural approach to communication of any newborn child goes through a series of complications before being called language, up to the capability to write thoughts. Those logic and symbolic systems are so connected to our education to be commonly considered natural capabilities, although they are not dictated by instinct but by culture. 'Animal language' is more direct, because each sound and behaviour is directly connected to its meaning, generally avoiding compression and fragmentation, but creating a direct relation sound/gesture meaning/need. 'What you see is what you get', which is used to define a sort of simplicity inherent to machines and their interfaces to communicate with humans, can be re-used to interpret most animals' approach to language. Humans tend to consider animal language ambiguous because they receive it with an overhead level of decryption, elsewhere described as the tendency to interpret animals as if they were like humans. The attempt to decrypt a non codified message results in the failure of communication.

Humans are described in contemporary culture as those animals (although they are usually well distinct from animals) who use prothesis (tools), and have the capability to write and read. Others describe this difference as the capability of thinking; thus the presence of a so called immortal and/or immaterial Soul, called anima in some cultures, is suggested, should this be peculiar and able to differentiate them from other animals. Lacking the possibility to demonstrate the difference of our thinking or our sentimental power from that of other animals, ethic culture states: mankind = homo prothesicus et symbolicus (logicus).

Animals do not use oracles, or, if they do, the process is so natural and spontaneous, intrinsic to their nature, that they are part of it, as if they were elements inside a clock. In ancient times the flight of birds was observed as a sign for divination, and it is still true that before a big storm it is often possible to see birds flying around nervously, and animals are said to perceive in advance earthquakes and natural disasters: they appear somehow closer to nature, and more aware, although their system of communication is simpler. ((If we compare the two axis human/animal and machinic/natural, we can state the following:)) animal language is closer to nature, but not so easy to be understood by humans. It is in this sense possible to compare animal language to a programming language like assembler, which is more simple and direct, if we look at it from a machine's perspective, it appears complex to mankind approach, because it is low level. Speaking of programming languages, low level means that the language is more machine understandable than human readable. High level programming languages are, on the other side, easier for people to comprehend, but they require an interpreter to be translated to machine language. This renders those languages slower to execute then those low level, but they are easier to learn. Animal language is probably low level too, which means closer to nature and not subsequently codified, thus less symbolic and more ambiguous for humans. And again, humans tend to extend various layers of interpretation between them and the reality they observe, because they implemented, over the centuries, the tendency to interpret nature as if its elements were part of a coherent, symbolic, linguistic discourse. This attitude to engender a process of de-codification of data and to assign to elements of reality a certain value which can acquire a specific meaning within a relation among parts, might be a consequence of the linguistic skills of mankind, and, whereas in some cases this symbolic-interpreting approach is defined 'mental intelligence', in other more extreme cases it is referred to as 'general paranoia'. In any case we can, using terms for categorizing, describe humans of mankind as those animals who use prothesis, symbolic languages and (sometimes) oracles.

Beside this element of interpretation, what we can detect inside the attitude to ask for answers outside themselves, and also outside the ontological status of humanity - because the oracle is an appeal or a question asked to an element or entity of another kind - is a diffuse sense of insecurity, confusion of perceptions and the attitude to construct a meta-level of comprehension of elements which become signifying because their intrinsic and extrinsic relations are considered relevant - as if composing a message inside a system which appears to have a certain structure. An hypothesis could be that a diffuse level of uncertainty can be verified only whereas articulated language is at use: the logic of language and science, which struggled towards structures of certainty, rationality and demonstrable paradigms and laws, leads to an abyss of concomitant possibilities which renders logicians and their instruments tremendously fragile and metamorphic, because everything depends on the perspective of the observer. Reality around becomes slightly out of measurement, everything is to be interpreted, and the process of interpretation itself is mastering the creation of an alternative reality which states its cohesion and isolation. Uncertainty appears to be another characteristic of humans. In some cases the presence of this uncertainty contributes in developing an identity which has the tendency to appeal, search for and trust entities imagined to be above the level of humanity, constructing in this way a imaginary structure of beings, which is hierarchic: humans are central, while animals are at the bottom, Gods are on top. This is a planar schema of a generic structure of belief. Another spatial and symbolic element inscribed in such general grid is the structure, described by Zoroastrianism, where good is opposed to bad, whereas, generally and topologically speaking, good is up and bad down, like heaven and hell (although this includes exceptions and differentiations at a iconographic level). Another opposition is right and left. Thus language creates this idea of an order, or grid, which is oriented and not reticular, hierarchic but still relational: there are more animals than humans, more humans than demons, more demons than Gods. This order is somehow governed and regulated, and in the direction of the top awareness and justice are located. The structure is relational and in a certain sense also dynamic: a man can become demon (see mythological heroes in Classic culture), or a person can become a Saint (see Catholic tradition), or a famous person can become a star (see contemporary pop culture). Also, men can behave as beasts (see moral culture), and certain demons are half human and half animal (Centaurus, mermaids, etc). The most interesting agents of this pyramidal structure are those transforming metamorphic creatures sharing properties and predicates of different substances and domains, half human half gods entities (angels, demons, natural spirits), and all those which act as messengers, or mediators of communication between different domains, i.e. priests, mediums and oracles...

In current times the word 'oracle' indicates the person or entity giving the response, the response itself, and the place where the action of divination is performed.

On a first place, the idea of a software device able to make and provide decisions for others suggests a very complex machine which should be so well forged to be able to perform and think and evaluate better than humans. On the other side, since this would be a human made rational machine, the question whether this could reach such a perfection to avoid any form of uncertainty is controversial, and how to implement this is at stake. The question whether a machine made of inert matter can produce divination is central, because divination requires intuition, belief and interpretation. If divination is defined as "being inspired by a God", then the question is: "Can a God inspire a machine?", can there be a "Deus in machina" as there used to be a "Deus ex machina?". Can a machine be possessed? How do we imagine the trance state of a machine? The word machine derives from Latin 'machina', whose original meaning is a device having moving parts that perform or assist in performing any type of work. The advent of electronics has led to the development of devices without moving parts that are considered machines - the computer being the most obvious example. A machine is a system which uses, creates and transforms energy, thus it implies movement and flow. If belief and interpretation can be simulated, and intuition can be described as a fast processing of a big amount of data, the social interaction that these 'events' require for the oracle to happen cannot be injected inside a single inert engine. The structure of interaction in a process of divination is more or less like the following: one or more persons are present as assistants (es. musicians), witnesses or to ask questions; the person receiving the question is also receiving the God (inspiration, trance). The divine element is a third actor in such process. Present people provide belief and interpretation, the person mediating acts as a transfer of a message: thus intuition is implied.

Over this year of research I understood that the Oracle Machine is not a technical evolution, or a simple software. The Oracle Machine is a ritual and social experiment, and the machine itself is built of a combination of parts which are of different sort and substance.

The first type of machine I am constructing and enacting is a sort of Frankenstein: a machine composed of a combination of elements and actors which are not simply mechanical or electronic. The first Oracle machine is an organic and inorganic combination of elements which work together to create a certain effect, and the question whether such effect is illusory, real or incidental is of no importance. Containing software combined with human agents, the Oracle machine is a collective experience which creates a synergy between symbolic objects, a time-space situation, a software and a collection of digital devices working together in order to obtain and construct a certain effect, all triggered by the flow of collective energy and the ritual, theatrical and performatory factor. This way the machine's components trigger a circuit of energy which stimulates mixed substances and forces, mere objects, symbols, software, and people. There is no oracle without human presence, and there is no oracle without interpretation and language.

The first Oracle Machine is a collective art happening, in the form of an audiovisual stream.

Mediation and trance.

Interaction and interactivity.

Baktin coral composition of voices

Body and technology