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(At the recent Winford Conference David Platt gave an up-date of ‘Fingerprinting Haiku’)

Beware the persuasive rhetoric of presentations that make ‘jumps of reasoning’ from statements like we will be able to feed into the computer to the computer will be able to tell us. In running programs such as that currently proposed for ‘fingerprinting haiku’, whatever comes out of the computer - from the neutral rational to the prejudicial - will always be of earthbound human origins. No amount of computer programming will alter the way we use, or choose to use, words - for whatever purpose. A lot of people know that. Perhaps not all, however, are alert to presentational method. It is only fair to admit that, had David Platt been forced, each time, to say the computer will be able to process what we put into it so as to etc, then his paper would have overrun its time. But also, it might have been less seductive, and more unnerving - even to the well informed.

The relationship between human beings (with their innate ability and drive to rationalise everything) and their technology is a precarious one. The urge to ‘boldly go’ despite potential or imminent disaster seems part of what it is to be human, viz.

• The rationalisation/reduction of UK abattoirs despite recent (1967) experience of ‘foot and mouth’.


• The arrogant corporate dismissal of faulty O-rings in the last Apollo disaster.
  
• And always we, the general public, are politically persuaded by the subtle substitution of ‘need’ for ‘want’.

I once knew a scientist who (my opinion) was probably never guilty of a creative concept in his life. His contribution to science seemed to be to buy the latest measuring equipment solely in order to measure A to B in all circumstances from alpha to omega. This activity afforded him material for numerous papers couched in many numbers but little thought. It also secured his job.

I have no personal animosity towards David Platt. I simply find myself all too often irritated by another aspect of human nature: that we all too frequently forget/overlook the sort of animal we are. Interesting academic exercise this project might be, but I urge you - I beseech you in the bowels of haiku - do not confuse ‘want’ with ‘need’. And in the meantime, be prepared: think hard - now - as to how this proposed intrusion of scientific method into matters so profoundly non-scientific might affect the natural evolution of haiku method and aesthetics.