Lynch The externalized retina

201
selection and mathematization
"Selection concerns the way scientific
methods of visualization simplify and schematize objects of
study. Mathematization concerns how such methods attribute
mathematical order to natural objects."

visual analysis - lacking?

visual an important part of scientific fact

202
Visuals -
They are essential to how scientific objects and orderly
relationships are revealed and made analyzable.

"To appreciate
this, we first need to wrest the idea of representation from an
individualistic cognitive foundation, and to replace a preoccupation
with images on the retina (or, alternatively 'mental images'
or 'pictorial ideas') with a focus on the 'externalized retina' of
the graphic and instrumental fields upon which the scientific
image is impressed and circulated?"

"For sociological purposes, the
"real" object is the representation in hand, e.g., the visual display,
and not the invisible phenomenon or abstract relationship "out
there. ''3 Furthermore, we need to recall that visual documents
are used at all stages of scientific research. A series of representations
or renderings is produced, transferred, and modified as research
proceeds from initial observation to final publication."

" The first collection consists of 'split-screen' juxtapositions of
photographs, diagrams, and sometimes 'models,' each of which
proposes to represent 'the same thing.' The split-screen format
enables us to discuss procedures of selection or simplification by
examining how diagrams transform photographic depictions."

"The second collection consists of illustrations which display how
a natural terrain is turned into a graphic field. These illustrations
will be analyzed for how they identify substantive properties of
depicted 'objects' with the mathematical parameters of a graph."

"Published
illustrations are not self-sufficient descriptions of research
processes. 4 They do not directly reveal how researchers produce
and utilize visual documents during laboratory projects."

203

illustrations - parasite

" The way documents are
used in natural science texts thus converges with their analytic
use here; my discussion parasitizes properties of the documents it
analyzes. Foremost among these parasitized properties is that of
how the illustration is an autonomous surface that is nonetheless
contained within a text, and which can be used in various ways by
the text's discourse to invite a reader to 'see what is being said."

"Instead of using pictures as evidence for naturalistic
claims about objective entities or relationships, I will use them
as evidence of methodic practices, accomplished by researchers
working together in groups, which transform previously hidden
phenomena into visual displays for consensual 'seeing' and 'knowing.'"

204
selective perception
ordering

way we select something 

"Selection is responsible for the constancy-phenomena:
rhythm into a monotonous succession of sonorous strokes,
it groups dispersed dots into rows, figures, and constellations.
Whatever organization may be found in experience is bestowed
upon it by the mind working on the 'primordial chaos of sensation.'
(Gurwitsch, 1964:28)"

Research teams use laboratory
practices to transform invisible or unanalyzed specimens into
visually examined, coded, measured, graphically analyzed, and
publically presented data.

filters to make manageable data

205
 issues with filters:
"The idea of selectivity or simplification serves adequately as a
starting point, as a sensitizing notion that motivates a sociological
interest in how scientific research constitutes objects of study.
I will claim here, however, that the metaphor of filtering fails to
address significant aspects of research practice. To support that
claim, and, more importantly, to point to characteristics of the
research process that are missed by the notion of selectivity, I
will discuss a series of figures chosen from various scientific texts."

" I will use
the illustrations to argue that the notion of simplification is too
simple, and that it glosses over features of transformational practices
which, when examined in their own right, do not seem to be
matters only of filtering or selection. While a few published illustrations
will not give access to the lively complexities of laboratory
work, and of the in situ work of transforming specimens into
"facts," they are adequate for the purpose of reexamining the idea
of selection or simplification in scientific 'perception.'"

208
"The diagram is a schematic representation of what
can be seen in the photograph. The members of the pair have a
directional relationship to one another: each is an independent
representation, but they are not equ.ivalent. One depends upon
the other: the diagram operates upon what is shown in the photograph
(unlike, for instance, two different technical renderings of
a same thing, 8 such as can be seen in comparisons between x-ray
and optical photographs of a distant galaxy or nebula). Although
the diagram can be seen as a schematic version of the photograph,
the photograph is not to be taken as a schematic representation
of the diagram."
sequence - directionality

" Relative to the diagram, the photograph appears
to be more "original" material," whereas the diagram is more
evidently analyzed, labeled, and 'idealized.'"

the photo is not more "true"

209
filtering - things disappear, we don't know why

uniforming -  show less variation than the original photo

upgrading - Shapes, and divisions between distinct surfaces are
made more definite. Dim differences become clear differences of
structure, and identifying features are more clearly distinguished
against their backgrounds.

Defining - Entities are not only made more like one another, they are more
clearly distinguished from unlike entities. Sensual qualities of the
image work in concert with linguistic labels and pointers to code
and categorize entities. What counts as likeness or distinctness
depends upon the analytic purposes of the text in which the
figures appear.

210
" In Figure 2, the lines and textures of the diagram adjust the
sensual qualities of what is shown to more clearly 'respond' to
the labels connected by the pointers."

eidetic images - icon!!

What I wish to argue is that, relative to the photograph, the
diagram is an emetic image 11 and not merely a simplified image.
I emphasize this relativity because it could also be argued that
relative to what would be seen in the microscope the photograph
is an eidetic image, or that relative to the original specimen the
stained and otherwise prepared slide in the microscope is an
eidetic image (note how the caption in Figure 1 states that the
ribosome in the micrograph is "defined by an outline of the salt
of a heavy metal"). By "eidetic image" I mean an icon of what
Heidegger (1967:101 - 102) calls "the mathematical" in the sense
of mathesis universalis: the theoretical domain of pure structure
and universal laws which a Galilean science treats as the founda


211
 

The figures above show more of a continuum

of representations modifying the products of previous

observations and representations. Each of these representations

selects from a prior representation, while exhibiting a dependency

on pre-established formations visible in the prior and at the same

time 'upgrading' the orderliness and utility of those formations.

Order is not simply constituted, it is exposed, seized upon, clarified,

extended, coded, compared, measured, and subjected to mathematical operations.
215
Tracings


In addition to merely synthesizing particular representations,
certain models (such as Figure 5) are drawn in such a way as to
'expose' internal or underlying 'mechanisms' that serve further to
analyze or to explain visible anatomical features.

216
The concrete representation of the
anatomical entity begins to crystallize not only what can be seen
of it in various micrographs at a comparable level of magnification,
but also what can be claimed about its biochemical structure;
a structure which could not possibly be viewed by the same
means as the anatomical outlines. Note how the cut-away view of
the cristae (Figure 5) seemingly exposes an abstract geometrical
arrangement in its inner mechanism. This juxtaposes anatomical
context and explanatory geometrics within an integrated visual
account; a visual image that nowhere could be seen or photographed
in a unified way with currently available techniques other
than through the artful assembly of such a diagram.


216
The model does not necessarily simplify the diverse representations,
labels, indexes, etc., that it aggregates. It adds theoretical
information which cannot be found in any single micrographic
representation, and provides a document of phenomena which
cannot fully be represented by photographic means.

217
Illustrations in scientific texts seldom merely depict specimens,
they integrate the individual and aggregate properties of specimens
with mathematical operations. Tables and graphs abound in
scientific publications. These visual documents integrate the substantive,
mathematical, and literary resources of scientific investigation,
and create the impression that the objects or relations they
represent are inherently mathematical.

217
for-granted mathematical sciences. From that
contemporary starting point he programmatically outlined the
problem of how the things encountered in a pre-scientific praxis
were measured by, and identified with, the limit forms of geometry:

First to be singled out from the thing-shapes are surfaces -
more or less "smooth," more or less perfect surfaces; edges,
more or less rough or fairly "even"; in other words, more or less
pure lines, angles, more or less perfect points; then, again,
among the lines, for example, straight lines are especially preferred,
and among the surfaces the even surfaces, straight lines,
and points are preferred, whereas totally or partially curved
surfaces are undesirable for many kinds of practical interests.
Thus the production of even surfaces and their perfection
(polishing) always plays a role in praxis. (Husserl, 1970:376)

The limit forms of geometry, initially used as points or lines of
reckoning for guiding constructive action, were cognitively transformed
into the basis for a Galilean physics; a physics that posited
mathematical order to be the essential underlying nature of the
empirical world.

218
 It is possible to read Husserl's account as a description, not of
a once-and-for-all historical movement from proto-science to
science, but as an account of what scientists do every time they
prepare a specimen for analysis in actual laboratory work. Starting
with an initially recalcitrant specimen, scientists work methodically
to expose, work with, and perfect the specimen's surface
appearances to be congruent with graphic representation and
mathematical analysis.14

219
The details of laboratory work, and of the
visible products of such work, are largely organized around the
practical task of constituting and "framing" a phenomenon so that
it can be measured and mathematically described. The work of
constituting a measurable phenomenon is not entirely separate
from the work of measurement itself, as we shall see.

Mathematization is embodied in the graph. The graph has
become an emblem of science which even popular advertisements
exploit. Graphing a phenomenon identifies the thing or
relationship with the analytic resources of mathematics. Just as
significantly, it places an account of the thing on paper, or prepares
the phenomenon with a practical and social universality;
not the cognitive universality of mathematics, but the mundane
durability, iterability, and invariance of a textual impression, is

224

Scientists sometimes speak of "natural laboratories;" unusual
circumstances which permit controlled observation, comparison,
and experimentation to be performed on fields, objects, or relationships
which usually occur in more confounding circumstances.

224
...select and isolate purportedly "natural" features of their
specimens that facilitate controlled observation. For instance,
areas of the brain which exhibit a "stratified" anatomy are dissected
for analysis instead of regions where the spatial arrangement
of cells does not distribute into relatively uniform regions. '9
In other words, there is a preference for specimen materials that
exhibit approximate geometricity, not because geometric form
by itself is of interest, but because such form provides a convenient
basis for specific practical actions. Figure 6, "Dr. Goring's
test objects," illustrates an early case in microscopy of a collection
of objects which exhibited unusual linearity and regularity
of magnified details. The details were not so much of interest
in themselves, as they were as naturally occurring grids for elucidating
the optical accuracy of the instruments used to examine
them."

225
leads to upgrading and framing

228
 Each
lane identifies an individual specimen, and each row identifies a
specific "molecule" analytically isolated from the specimens.
Molecular identity is visible as nothing more than the two dimensional
size of the spots and their graphic distribution. Although
more substantial than points, the "molecules" are also highly
abstract, taking the form of opaque spots identified with graphic
codes.
Variations on the commonplace organization of the graph are
endless: Are points plotted on paper 'by hand' or are they meant
to identify substantive properties of specimen residues (such as
in Figure 10)? Do lines and scales originate from the designs of
instruments (Figure 10), or do they claim a material relation to
anatomical strata (Figures 6 and 8)? Hybrid graphic features can
be viewed as relatively abstract or concrete; as originating through
literary representation or 'hands off' instrumental transfers from
'world' to paper (such as with a seismograph).