Comment On “The Computer: A Composer’s Collaborator”

pencil and paper. Only then can he extend his autonomy to more complex or mechanized media. Only then can he imbue his designs with the possibility of autonomy for others. Does so much focusing on the developmentof the architect imply a kind of Randian triumph of ego over altruism, as in TheFountainhead,that quintessential portrait of the architect as misanthrope?I don’t think so. I do think, however, that the view I have sketched here of the architect’s ethical position in society,for which I find support in von Foerster’s ideas, involves a Freudian triumph of ego over superego, the requisite step in any individual’s healthy mental development . But, as the Freudian view reveals and the Randian does not, the processes of sublimation inevitably connect the mature individual with his community and, ultimately, with nature as a whole. The architectwho serves himself best serves his highest, most sublimated self, which embraces within the expansive ego the interests of humanity and nature, as he understands them to be. We in architecture today are a long way from this sort of maturity because architects still bear inner allegiance to religious-moral precepts of the hierarchical, patriarchal world view and order that von Foerster’s ideas challenge at their roots. Like Nietzsche’svision of the individual’s self-overcoming, von Foerster’s ideas are both a critique of the contemporary architect’s submissiveness to established authority at the expense of individual choice and responsibility , and a signpost indicating the most fruitful path for architecture’s future development. h 8 B E U S WOODS Director Research Institute for Experimental 25 East 67th Street New York, NY 10021 U.S.A. Architecture (RIM) RESPONSE TO LEBBEUS WOODS’S COMMENT I am most grateful to Lebbeus Woods who, in his comments on my paper on human perceptions and needs, brought to the fore much clearer than I did three points of my concern : choice, responsibility and dialogue. It moved me to turn to Martin Buber’s last paragraph of his book Das Problem des Menschen [I] which, when read in the context of architecture , acquires still another dimension . I have translated it thus: Contemplate the human with the human, andyou will see the dynamic duality,the human essence, together: here is the givingand the receiving, here the aggressive and the defensive power, here the quality of searching and ofresponding, alwaysboth in one, mutually complementingin alternating action, demonstrating together what it is: human. Now you can turn to the single one, and you recognize him as human for his potential of relating; then look at the whole and recognize him as human for his potential of relating . We may come closer to answering the question:what is a human?,when we come to understand him as the being in whose dialogic, in his mutually present twogetherness,the encounter of the one with the other is realizedand recognized at all times. HEIN2 VON FOEnsTER One Eden West Road Pescadero, CA 94060 U S A . Reference 1. M. Ruber, DasProbht d a M m s r h (Heidelhert : Larnbert Schneider, 1965). COMMENT ON “THE MARKOV PROCESS As A COMPOSITIONAL MODEL” Charles Ames has written a very informative and helpful article on the theory and use of Markov chains in music composition (Leonardo22, No. 2, 175-187, 1989).I do not have a lot to add to his technical discussion, but I do want to make one small correction and add my own view as to the musical uses of Markov chains and similar techniques. First, the correction. In his article, Ames speaks of my programs M and Jam Factory as though they were indis tinguishable. From my understanding of a Markov chain as Ames defines it, onlyJam Factmy uses this method. M employs random number generation, but no conditional probability tables. Ames’s interest is in compositions which are substantially determined by algorithmic processes. Programs such as his Cybernetic Composeraccept a set of parameters, run for a while, and produce a list of notes that can be performed or transcribed into music notation . As Ames implies in his article, Jam Factmyemploys a real-time Markov chain algorithm. The Markov chain approach was attractive to...