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06698_Field_TCUM T263.txt
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1996-04-10
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our extended senses or technologies should repeat the process
of translation and assimilation of one form into another. This
process may well be inseparable from the character of touch,
and from the abrasively interfaced action of surfaces, whether
in chemistry or crowds or technologies. The mysterious need of
crowds to grow and to reach out, equally characteristic of large
accumulations of wealth, can be understood if money and
numbers are, indeed, technologies that extend the power of
touch and the grasp of the hand. For numbers, whether of
people or of digits, and units of money would seem to possess
the same factual magic for seizing and incorporating.
The Greeks ran head-on into the problem of translating
their own new media when they tried to apply rational
arithmetic to a problem in geometry. Up arose the spectre of
Achilles and the tortoise. These attempts resulted in the first