تحول دیجیتال نظریه اجتماعی
Abstract
1. Digital transformation. The world as bit and tabulation
2. Prototypes of digitally transformed social theories
3. Agile matrices: the basic design of digital theories
4. Implications for the design of digital social theory
5. Outlook to a universal social theory machine
Acknowledgements
References
Abstract
This article outlines the basic design of digitally transformed social theory. We show that any digital world is created by the drawing and cross-tabling of binary distinctions. As any theory is supposed to be concerned with truth, we introduce to and insist on the distinction between true and false distinctions. We demonstrate how flexible matrix-shaped theory architectures based on true distinctions allow for the reduction and unfolding of the entire complexity of analogue social theories. The result of our demonstrations is the idea of a theoretical Supervacuus. The social equivalent of a universal Turing machine, this supervacuous social theory is virtually empty as it is based on only one proper theoretical premise (the idea of distinction [between true and false distinctions]), and therefore able to simulate all other social theory programmes. We conclude that our digitally transformed social theory design is particularly useful for observations of a digitally transformed society.
Digital transformation. The world as bit and tabulation
Insofar as the digital transformation is associated with computers, digital transformation is a matter of tabulation. Whether these computers are abstract, mechanic, or electronic machines is of secondary importance, as Alan Turing (1995, p. 390) highlighted in his Lecture to the London Mathematical Society on 20 February 1947: “From the point of view of the mathematician the property of being digital should be of greater interest than that of being electronic. That it is electronic is certainly important because these machines owe their high speed to this, and without the speed it is doubtful if financial support for their construction would be forthcoming. But this is virtually all that there is to be said on that subject. That the machine is digital however has more subtle significance.” The subtle significance Turing attached to binary digits owes to their universal applicability. First, digital machines can compute numbers of any size to any degree of accuracy. Second, these machines are not limited to any scope of problem. Whatever the hardware, it is thus their binary architecture that turns digital computers into universal machines. The basic principle of these universal machines is the translation of symbols into or from binary code (Turing, 1937, p. 232), and the oftenimplicit principle behind this operation is that of tabulation. This holds true also for the legendary early forms of digital computing, which, for example, “shall be performed thus: First, let all the Letters of the Alphabet, by transposition, be resolved into two Letters only; for the transposition of two Letters by five placings will be sufficient for thirty two Differences, much more for twenty four, which is the number of the Alphabet” (Bacon, 1674, p. 170).