I just need to jot down a few thoughts for tomorrow’s discussion.  I read the several blog posts that have already been published on the readings with much interest in your penetrating perspectives on Hayles, especially in relation to Sherlock.

One point of entry/interest between the two texts (video episode and theory) is trying to figure out what Adler means to Sherlock in this story.  Is she friend, girlfriend, enemy, spy, lover, arch-nemesis, etc.?  It might be safe enough to say that traditional labels of relationship don’t clarify anything in this case.  What is Adler in terms of Hayles’ polarities: presence/absence, flickering signifier, information/noise?  Hayles writes:

Identifying information with both pattern and randomness proved to be a powerful paradox, leading to the realization that in some instances, an Identifying information with both pattern and randomness proved to be a powerful paradox, leading to the realization that in some instances, an infusion of noise into a system can cause it to reorganize at a higher level of complexity.  Within such a system, pattern and randomness are bound together in a complex dialectic that makes them not so much opposites as complements or supplements to one another. Each helps to define the other, and each contributes to the flow of information through the system. (25)

Other things to consider: In Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, Maria’s final gesture is to bring together the head and hands (the head of state and the workers symbolized in the presence of Joh and Freder, father and son) to mediate via the heart.  In this postmodern story of head, hands, and heart (remember how Moriarty intones that he will burn the heart out of Sherlock?), what is “the heart”? What, if anything, mediates?

photo credit: License Some rights reserved by Cea.