Can we ask a number? We can ask a computer to calculate numbers. The calculation gives an answer to a question. Numbers by themselves do not give answers. But we can understand numbers as questions, as question marks, as marks that embody questions. The human mind asks. He invents signs such as god and numbers in order to give his questions a body, an appearance. Without questions the computer could not give any answer. But we can understand the computer as something, that moves marks, as something that moves expressions of questions. So we may become able to subvert the power of computing machines. We may enable ourselves to understand numbers as powerful questions.

“The rapports, that the answer has with the question, are in the first line rapports of power and therefore political”. (Jabès)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 29th, 2007 at 12:53 pm and is filed under Art, Mathematics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.