第2章 私の現在の世界観 n.4 - 記録媒体が記録するもの
もう一つ別の例をとろう。いまある演説が同時に多数の録音機によって録音されると想定すると、その録音記録は,元のの演説にあきらかな形ではまったく似ていない(注:一方は人の声、一方はレコードに掘られた一連の溝,というようにまったく別物)。にもかかわらず,適切な機械装置によってその記録はもとの演説に非常によく似ているものを再生することができる。従って,それら記録はもとの演説と共通な何ものかをもっているに違いない。しかし,この両者が共通にもっているものは,構造に関して,かなり抽象的な言葉で言い表わすことができるだけである。放送は,同じプロセスについて、さらに良い(even better)実例を与える。一人の演説者と、ラジオでその演説を聞いている人との間に介在するものは、一見したところ(on the face of it),演説者の言うところにも,聴取者の聞くところにも,まったく似ていない。ここにもまた,びとつの因果(原因と結果)の連鎖があり、その最初(注:発声)は最後(注:再生した声)に似ているが、その中間項(intermediate terms 音が刻み込まれた溝)は、その本質(内在的性質)に関するかぎり、両端(最初と最後)とは全く異なった種類のもののように見える。この因果の連鎖の全体を通して保存されているのは、前の録音機の場合と同様この場合においても、構造についての一定の恒常性(不変性)である。 |
Chapter 2: My present view of the world, n.4Or let us take another illustration. Let us imagine a rich cynic, disgusted by the philistinism of theatregoers, deciding to have a play performed, not before live people, but before a collection of cine-cameras. The cine-cameras - supposing them all of equal excellence - will produce closely similar records, differing according to the laws of perspective and according to their distance from the stage. This again shows, like the photographic plate, that at each cine-camera a complex of events is occurring at each moment which is closely related to the complex of events occurring on the stage. There is here the same need as before of separable influences proceeding from diverse sources. If, at a given moment, one actor shouts, 'Die, Varlet!’ while another exclaims, 'Help! Murder!' both will be recorded, and therefore something connected with both must be happening at each cine-camera.To take yet another illustration: suppose that a speech is recorded simultaneously by a number of gramophones, the gramophone records do not in any obvious way resemble the original speech, and yet, by a suitable mechanism, they can be made to reproduce something exceedingly like it. They must, therefore, have something in common with the speech. But what they have in common can only be expressed in rather abstract language concerning structure. Broadcasting affords an even better illustration of the same process. What intervenes between an orator and a man listening to him on the radio is not, on the face of it, at all similar either to what the orator says or to what the listener hears. Here, again, we have a causal chain in which the beginning resembles the end, but the intermediate terms, so far as intrinsic qualities are concerned, appear to be of quite a different kind. What is preserved throughout the causal chain, in this case as in that of the gramophone record, is a certain constancy of structure. |