[SIGCIS-Members] Virtuality versus transprency -- trying to locate a quote about the difference

Fri Oct 31 11:17:48 PDT 2014

Hello,
 	I'm struck that transparency as making the inner workings of 
something apparent is a very old and I thought very common metaphor in 
various phrases.
 	For example the phrase "I saw right through him" to indicate you 
saw through deception and divined someone's true motives and plans. So 
when you see right through him you actually see him better than when you 
see him in the normal mode, just as when you understand a political 
process better when it is transparent.
 	This goes back to at least 1856 
(and presumably far earlier but this was the earliest use I found on 
google books). Although arguably it suggests that we see right through 
someone's dissembling, lies etc. rather than through him, but it seems 
like a natural metaphor.
http://books.google.ca/books?id=OjEZAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22I%20saw%20right%20through%20him%22&pg=PA287#v=onepage&q=%22I%20saw%20right%20through%20him%22&f=false
 	Looking at some old usages I think the metaphor using the exact 
word "transparent" to mean "obvious" is pretty old also. So "my 
patriotic American ears burned with shame as I heard how an American 
had been gulled by such a simple and transparent operation." The 
transparency of the operation indicates that it is an obvious scam not a 
indiscernable one. 
http://books.google.ca/books?id=5GNEAAAAIAAJ&dq=%22transparent%20operation%22&pg=PA94#v=onepage&q=%22transparent%20operation%22&f=false
 	Perhaps, the word "clear" provides a case of the metaphor going 
the other way, since (according to etymological dictionary I checked 
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=clear ) it starts by meaning 
something obvious ("bright"), keeps that meaning, but also means not 
blocking/encumbering light/vision and so means transparent (a clear day, 
clear water etc.).
 	Not sure I can justify it exactly, but I would have said 
transparency as a metaphor for divining inner workings is the inutive 
metaphor and that the CS metaphor making it synonymous with invisible or 
seamless is actually the less intuitive one (although it is still 
intelligible as a metaphor).
 	To me transparency connotes something you can see through but that 
still makes its presence known, the opposite of transparency is opaqueness 
or obscurity, whereas the opposite of invisibility is simply visibility.

-- 

Yours Truly,
Allan Olley, PhD

http://individual.utoronto.ca/fofound/

On Fri, 31 Oct 2014, Andrew Meade McGee wrote:

> Putting on my hat as someone trained as a political historian: 
> Tom's point on the divergent meaning is an interesting one. I've enjoyed this
> thread. 
> As I understand the derivation of transparency in a U.S. political context, the
> origins lie with a metaphor centered on doors and windows, open versus closed.
> Traditional machine politics -- Tammany Hall, smoke-filled back rooms, handshake
> deals out of sight of voters, reporters, etc. -- is obscured to the external
> observer by walls. Transparency here is akin to the Progressive-Era notion of a
> window permitting light to stream through. What you're making permeable to vision
> is the barrier external scrutiny, revealing the innerworkings. In government,
> optimal transparency means you're supposed to see the workings as they're in
> motion, but you are still outside the structure. 
> 
> I'd liken Henri Bergson's thirties-era theorization of an "open society" as the
> "glass-bottom boat model of democracy." In a truly open society, the citizen can
> see all the fishies but doesn't have to get wet. 
> 
> --AMM
> 
> -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
> Andrew Meade McGee
> Corcoran Department of History
> University of Virginia
> PO Box 400180 - Nau Hall
> Charlottesville, VA 22904
> 
> On Fri, Oct 31, 2014 at 10:23 AM, Thomas Haigh <thaigh at computer.org> wrote:
>
>       It is actually the policy version of “transparency” that prompted me
>       to remember the quote. (Thanks to all those who responded). Journalism
>       sociologist/historian Michael Schudson from Columbia University was
>       visiting our Social Studies of Information group at UWM last week and
>       speaking on the “Origins of Transparency” which he located in the
>       1960s/70s developments of the Freedom of Information Act, public
>       disclosure of EPA impact statements, etc.
>
> 
>
>       However, contrary to Matthew’s point, it seemed to me that the
>       meanings are actually opposite in the two areas. Something that is
>       “transparent” in CS is invisible – you look right through it without
>       seeing it. In the political sense, a “transparent” process is one
>       where all the details are visible to the public.
>
> 
>
>       It seems to me that the CS sense is a more intuitive use of the
>       metaphor. Making a political process transparent would literally mean
>       that you see straight through it to whatever is behind it, but also
>       that the process itself is invisible. When we talk about making the
>       workings of government transparent the metaphor somehow seems to have
>       mutated to mean the opposite.
>
> 
>
>       Tom
>
> 
>
>       From: matthew.battles at gmail.com [mailto:matthew.battles at gmail.com] On
>       Behalf Of Matthew Battles
>       Sent: Friday, October 31, 2014 5:26 AM
>       To: Nabeel Siddiqui
>       Cc: James Cortada; thaigh at computer.org; sigcis
>       Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Virtuality versus transprency -- trying
>       to locate a quote about the difference
>
> 
>
>       All this does have me wondering about the internet-and-society field's
>       interest in, and advocacy for, a certain kind of "transparency" in
>       civil discourse shares lineage with transparency in the comp-sci
>       sense, to the effect that transparency (in the sense of openness and
>       publicness of bureaucratic or deliberative decision-making process) is
>       a quality that can be produced and modified computationally. There is
>       an ideological disposition there to see government as a kind of social
>       UTM upon which different norms, beliefs, and commitments may be run
>       like so many lines of code...
>
> 
> 
> On Thu, Oct 30, 2014 at 12:42 PM, Nabeel Siddiqui <nasiddiqui at email.wm.edu>
> wrote:
> 
> Dear Tom,
>
> 
> 
> I believe this is from an old 1978 poster that IBM released dealing with
> virtual memory.  It is sometimes attributed to Scott Hammer, who worked at
> William and Mary before I got here as a graduate student.  Here is him
> explaining that this is the first time he saw it:
>  http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/92q3/seeit.html
>
> 
> 
> Hope that helps.
>
> 
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Nabeel Siddiqui
>
> 
> 
> On Thu, Oct 30, 2014 at 11:02 AM, James Cortada <jcortada at umn.edu> wrote:
> 
> By the way, Mike is alive and well.  Mike can you pipe in and confirm.  This
> is a fabulous insight and expression.  It should be quoted frequently!!
>
> 
> 
> Cheers.
>
> 
> 
> On Thu, Oct 30, 2014 at 9:24 AM, David Hemmendinger <hemmendd at union.edu>
> wrote:
> 
> >I heard it from Mike Williams, when he had his professor of computer
> science hat on! Here's how he said it:
> >
> >If it is there, but you can't see it, it is transparent.
> >If it isn't there, but you see it, it is virtual.
> >If it is there, and you see it, it is real.
> >
> >For the purposes of symmetry, what if something is not there and you can't
> see it?
>
>         If it isn't there and you can't see it, you're ok.
>
>         David
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>
> 
> 
> --
> 
> James W. Cortada
> 
> Senior Research Fellow
> 
> Charles Babbage Institute
> 
> University of Minnesota
> 
> jcortada at umn.edu
> 
> 608-274-6382
> 
> 
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> 
> --
> 
> matthew battles
> associate director, metaLAB (at) harvard
> fellow, berkman center for internet and society
> 
> twitter = @matthewbattles
> 
> Image removed by sender.
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> 
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