The analogy of computing

Abstract

Abstract The digital machine is analogical by design: with it, we construct models of phenomena that by definition of that term are necessarily partial approximations. For that reason, we learn more by conceiving of them as analogues rather than imperfect copies. As the foofaraw over AI would make clear to anyone who bothered to separate its strange wheat from the common chaff, analogy is key to the digital engine’s intellectual power, whether for good or for ill. (The one we must further, the other oppose, but in both cases, understand as fully as we are able.) Analogy is itself a Proteus, however, surfacing in different forms in different disciplines where the machine has found its applications. In the following essay, I chase it through a number of fields before returning to computing, with two examples of its application. I end with a brief note on worldmaking, which after all is what it’s all about, at whatever scale.