One final question about programming. Goethe's amanuensis, J.P. Eckermann, is responsible for an image of Goethe in conversation which has informed German literature for some two hundred years. Would you say that the interview itself has the quality of a programmable discourse network?

If you can describe it well enough and make it plausible, so that it doesn't just remain a metaphor, then I think it's an important task. The description of discourse networks always involves a knowledge of programming. Turing, in his theoretical writings on the computer, constantly draws the parallel between education and programming. On the one hand, how do you program the machine and what should it be capable of? On the other hand, what do you do with children? He always emphasizes the parallels. It's at points like these that the problems of cultural studies can be brought together with the problems of technology.