“I’m trying to befriend you. Don’t run from me, time!” this entire week, Simran Singh. In retrospect, what?!

It was a Reorganize, Repair and Prepare week for getting to the proposal next week, fighting stress for deadlines while having fun with it. As I set out this week prepared to kill all problems, I realized the problem with being a designer. Or the problem of being a designer in your final year. ‘Dealing with a new problem everyday’. This was the exact exciting idea that personally brought me here. But what next, if it slows you down! The phrase ‘killing the problem’ is too barbaric. Unless you’re a great magician of the world, envisioning and creating your own tools to make your own life easier. Only ‘make’ can help the ‘think’. Make your life easier.

I know my reflections begin from my personal dilemmas and process in here, but I think I’ll thank myself the next time I reflect on my design process for the projects of the future. Each paragraph herein is a different thought.

It has been two weeks since I got familiar with the notion of deconstruction, and yet the second time I watched the documentary, I still struggled to form an opinion about it. Deconstruction is fascinating in so many random ways- from observing the world and how language possibly shaped it to how we as people use language in everyday life. Contexts are dynamic, and as people adapting to them this dynamically, our language use too is influenced. How could there be consensus! I just think it must be tough to set constraints for algorithms when they are developed, to solve problems for the real world.

I think differance in deconstruction gives me the option to neither accept nor reject a conclusion. And it has to do with how the documentary was concluded- “You will understand not now, but in times to come.” Fascinating, since opinion may also be ahead of how you would process it yourself. If there is no means of knowing how meaning is understood, how would one understand or convey exactly what they think?

Conversely, how are machines to be instructed to follow such instructions, when we can’t seem to understand them the same ourselves? There is a sense of generalisation even in everyday communication.

This well-knit problem shows parallels with deconstruction, described as ‘an evasive dance where one doesn’t settle for a single position. Like how a crab moves.’ in the lecture. I say dynamic. How can these be set in value?

A mathematical universe emerges, with a mathematical rule.

In the documentary, at one part, when differance is introduced, Derrida compares the distinction with the example of the action ‘looking’. He says, ‘looking has no age. I am seen better by others than myself.’ indicating that the eye mediates the interactions between reality and fiction, just as much as the mind does. Does this mean spatial incorporation of technology would help in sense-making? Just a random thought.

Policymakers also make algorithms, only super general with means of diluting problems instead of eradicating it, considering eradicating is expected from algorithms. gauging how much impact they are really making. Funny how the non-questioner is blamed than considered.

I found it difficult to understand why Derrida would be thought as ‘a weird guy’ when it came to his perspective of the world via deconstruction. I think it could be justified, if language is one of our primary canvases to paint the world.

The breather / pause - may have been one of the first to-go for humankind to ‘snap out of it’ in times of utter confusion and distress. I imagine the black-box as a dark space where all possibilities, best to the worst case are being run through. Luckily for machines and their lack of feelings, they don’t quit, but they do need help! These are random connections but the idea of a ‘pause’ can be used to bring in inclusivity towards algorithms.

Signing off, in an alternate universe, an algorithm lawyer today

24 January 2020