Saturday, September 1, 2012

The Never-ending Drum Beats


        Attached is an example of how people of Yoruba talks with drums.  
        The Kele talking people of Zaire (today Congo) used their two tone system to encode the message they want to deliver from one to another, this primal and ancient method might seem outdated, yet even today, we still use them although through far fancier devices. From those drumbeats vaguely heard deep through the jungle, or from the other side of the hills, to the dim sparkles of candle lights, or a torch from a beacon, to the humming of a telegram machine, to today's 1s and 0s in our computer system. The beauty of the universe lies in the simplest construct: switch on, and off, and on, and off. What draws my attention is how the drum sounds use context to specify the message. This remind me of the Chinese language, in which different characters can have the same pronunciation, sometimes even the same tones. It was the context of the sentences, and the neighbouring characters that specify the meaning of each words. Similar situation can be found in interpretative dancing, where, for example, you might raise four fingers to indicate a "4" where you need to put an conjunction word like "for".
        After Claude Shannon introduced "bit" to our vocabulary of information, modern society moved quickly into an age where communication can be quantified. We are never seeing the world with same eyes, as we now can say: we understand how information transfigures through different receptors and processing devices. It's interesting how we can break down the basic element that makes up a message in order to communicate. A computer encoding the message it receives, break it into two digits, with which the operators can create endless variation of programs. Similarly, neuron-transmitters in our brains break down the visual/auditory/sensual information we receive so we "see", "hear", "feel", and "remember".  
        The concern of information explosion was raised up in the chapters, as the information expanded our imaginary universe to a scale beyond imagination, yet apply the basic solution to it like we did with everything else throughout the history, I'm hopeful that the solution might just well be within our arms' reach.
        Think about before written language was invented, we store our information using those elaborated "drumbeats". The method of loci, which most people like to call "memory palace" might be the most figurative and tangible example to demonstrate how we make connection between information. We add information so construct a message so it's easier to make connections between each of the pivotal pieces. It was mentioned in the chapter that Homer's epic poems were carried our orally, and all the extra "fluff" were added in aid of story tellers to memorize the facts. Expand the same notion to any other fields of human society or science, we can see how the communication of information follows the same basics through different devices. 
        Those connections are the never-ending "drum beats" we humans have been using to label, identify and retrieve each piece of information. In the age of new media, we just need to search for a corresponding media to build up that memory palace again.

6 comments:

  1. In some ways we still use "fluff" to remember things. Such as mnemonics, which serve as memory aides. My favorite was always Big Cat Ate Small Man Of Quebec, which helped me remember the Canadian Provinces from west to east. Another popular one is, My Very Energetic Mother Just Made Us Nine Pizzas, of course now that Pluto has been demoted that doesn't work anymore. Of course, it isn't the poetry of the ancient Greeks, but I think its a little fluffy.

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    1. Now It'd be My Very Energetic Mother Just Made Us Nacho. :)

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    2. That's excellent!! I'm going to have to remember that one. Nicely done!

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  2. This is very interesting!I am Nigerian & I wasn't even aware of this.

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    1. Yeah after hearing that, I still can't comprehend how it's used to communicate between people. I feel like it's still more like a hobby. That definitely takes some getting used to.

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