Deutsch’s “The Jump to Universality” raises some interesting questions spatial literacy. Deutsch argues that “a writing system based on an alphabet can cover not only every word but every possible word in its language, so that words that have yet to be coined already have a place in it.” In Deutsch’s model, an alphabet represents a universal system, but I disagree that there is any such thing as a universal system. An alphabet composes every possible word only within the agreed-upon limitations of a language. Why couldn’t I decide that half an “a” is a word? Or introduce a new phoneme into a language? The English language alphabet is universal in the sense that it meets the demands of all existent English words. But, by that token, Archimedes numerical system was universal because it described every number of which he needed to conceive. “Universal” is both historically and culturally mediated.
Nevertheless, an alphabet is clearly a useful tool. It is indeed comprehensive within its assigned boundaries. So image parsing needs its own alphabet, and in order to develop one, we need to set a framework. Do we apply human biological limitations to the computer? Do we instead capitalize on the differences between computer and human vision? Some combination of both? In Deutsch’s historical examples, systems are circumscribed by need. When we decide how we want and need to use image parsing, we will know its practical boundaries.