Alexander O. Smith’s Reviews > Contingent Computation: Abstraction, Experience, and Indeterminacy in Computational Aesthetics > Status Update
Alexander O. Smith
is on page 5 of 248
Out of the gate, it seems clear to me that--despite an interesting perspective that even I suggested was possible in my dissertation--Fazi hangs her argument on a formal misunderstanding of Turing's Halting Problem. Halted doesn't create an indeterminate state that would thereby generate a computational contingency. Rather, formally, the indeterminancy concerns WHEN to halt. It's state can be calculated.
— Jul 27, 2026 10:47AM
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Alexander O. Smith
is on page 14 of 248
It seems that Fazi prefers to argue that contingency is "aesthetic" and defends the question of "Why?" with mostly aesthetic aims and continental theoretical tendencies, not computational axiomatics that would determine why. This flies in the face of what the book proclaims it will escape.
— Jul 27, 2026 10:51AM
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Jul 27, 2026 11:22AM
Just a follow up on this point: this doesn't completely overthrow Fazi's contribution at this juncture, but it certainly curbs the idea that the computational contingency happens "within" the abstract digital computing system. I.e. humans decide where to halt a calculation, even if it's on the level of OS design, and thereby know how closely they approximate any given calculation. The contingency in relation to halting, therefore, is still happening in meat space, not abstracted digital space, as Fazi claims
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