Monday, May 4, 2015

Computer's and Liberal Arts

"In my perspective ... science and computer science is a liberal art, it's something everyone should know how to use, at least, and harness in their life. It's not something that should be relegated to 5 percent of the population over in the corner. It's something that everybody should be exposed to and everyone should have mastery of to some extent, and that's how we viewed computation and these computation devices." - Steve Jobs 


 
I started with that quote from Steve Jobs because I think it illustrates that liberal arts have had just as much of an impact on computers as computers have had on liberal arts. It is a two way road, that has to me looked at as a whole rather than it's individual directions. Computer Science is often seen as separate from liberal arts, but it is becoming increasing clear that Computers are becoming an integral part of every area of human education and knowledge. Christine Shannon Talks about how a computer science education brings logic to liberal arts in her book Computer Science and the Liberal Arts. Shannon mentions that Computers don't understand implied meaning, which means they can teach to student to think of the logical meaning of their words.

Another great part of Steve Jobs is because to talks about the ultimate goal of computers. Even though Shannon believed computers are purely logical, that's not entirely true. The we look at what computers are used for the more we see a space that enhances the illogical. Art, sentiment, rage, addiction, all of these things are enhanced by computers. In the paper Computationally Modeling Human Emotion the authors try to pin point to what degree the human mind needs to be decoded in order to construct computers that will be advanced enough to be truly called intelligent. Stacy Marsella and Jonathan Gratch discuss the fact that in order to build these artificial computers scientists are spend a lot of time talking with liberal arts experts. Psychologists in particular are of huge help. Liberal Arts studies that go all the way back to Aristotle's philosophy have an impact on computers of today.

So the question is the proverbial linear enigma, which came first the chicken or the egg. All in this case it's a little easier. Liberal arts came first, but the questions still applies in terms of acceleration given the trajectory of technology and education. So let's go back to the first statement made by Mr. Steve Jobs. He said that "computer science is liberal arts". That sums it up. Computers are brand new, but they are really nothing new. They are just more advanced forms of previous technologies that allow us to record what we know about the world. Computers will transform the world, but the world itself will not change. So what is changing? We are. We are moving at light speed or close to it. All the things we know are being poured into an archive, one that we are relying on to greater extents