Step 08: 100 monkeys on a hundred machines (King Balthassar)

a stochastic demonstration of the soul...(writing on the wall)

a fretful writer spills his inkwell on the ledger.
The sun in dashes plunges into the oily pool,
as an ant passes and his rapid crawling
scrawls out the Poet's song.

Though highly improbable, this scenario is not impossibile. That is, it is not incoherent with our concept of physical laws. If it were to happen to us, we would be amazed. And if amazed, we would be amazed that ant should write, and write so well.

That is we would doubt that the ant had intended to write or could have an intention at all, but we would not hesitate to read the phrase. On the contrary, it is the veritable cause of our amazement. The consequence is that intention, or any "baptismal" theory of sense and meaning, is ... nonsense.

What does that mean?
It means that meaning is NOT what we mean.
Or at least, meaning is not what we mean it to mean. What do we mean?

You can read the extreme consequences of this simple "observation", including the wisdom of janitors, in the text (if of course italian is meaningful, for you...)

What does this have to do with architecture you may ask? Everything, if only for the simple reason that architecture is the prosecution of philosophy with other means.

Do you recognize the army of monkeys in the graphic?