Technology
In De Augmentis Scientiarum, Francis Bacon makes a remark that has often been dismissed as a cryptographic curiosity. In fact, it articulates a far deeper principle: meaning can be conveyed by any medium whatsoever, provided it admits of a stable twofold difference:
Neither is it a small matter these cypher-characters have, and may perform: for by this art a way is opened, whereby a man may express and signify the intentions of his mind, at any distance of place, by objects which may be presented to the eye, and accommodated to the ear: provided those objects be capable of a twofold difference only.
Bacon’s insight is not about letters or secrecy, but about encoding itself. Meaning does not inhere in symbols, sounds, or marks as such; it resides in difference, presence and absence, high and low, light and dark, sound and silence. Once this abstraction is made, content becomes independent of its material carrier, a separation that lies at the heart of digital representation.
Bacon anticipates the central intuition behind modern computing and information theory; his bi-literal cipher is the first binary system of encoding information. Long before binary arithmetic, symbolic logic, or formal machines, he identifies the minimal condition under which information can exist at all: consistent, repeatable distinction. Later figures would formalize and mechanize this insight, but Bacon supplies its philosophical ground. It is in this sense, not as an engineer but as a metaphysician of information, that Bacon stands at the beginning of the intellectual trajectory leading to modern computing.
The downsides of technology are becoming more apparent by the day, and we need a referendum on what kinds of technologies we want as a society. I even think we should stop manufacturing smartphones on such a large scale, the supply chain is too elaborate and they are doing us more harm than good. That’s pretty well established at this point.
If the ends are implicit in the means, the future with AI does not bode well. The people don’t want these data centers; they consume too much power and water, and they are being paid for with a big Ponzi scheme. It was reckless to release that technology without a public discussion first. Autonomous weapons with AI are a terrifying thought, but they are here.
