PURLOINED LETTER: ELEMENTS OF THE DISCOURSE

Poe's Purloined Letter

Lacan’s understanding of finite state automata allowed him to theorize that simple information machines were structured similarly to simple languages with limited functions; that the syntax of a finite-state automata was descriptive of the symbolic order.

Below I list the key theoretical objects discussed or referred to in seminar II and Lacan’s lecture on cybernetics in order to map out a local “discourse network”

1. the objects
2. where the objects occur:

1. the objects

Von Neumann & Morgenstern's Game Theory and Economic Behaviour;

The Tale of the Purloined Letter by Edgar Allen Poe;

The game of odds & evens (matching pennies);

Lacan describes a finite state automata that can play the game of odds and evens,

(with the same function as Claude Shannon & David Hagelbarger's SEER)

2. where the objects occur

A matrix of common themes interconnect the different elements of the discourse:

Odd & even (matching pennies) appears in Poe's story;

Poe and odd and even (matching pennies) appear in von Neumann & Morganstern’s Game Theory and Economic Behaviour;

Poe and odd and even (matching pennies) appear in von Neumann & Morganstern’s Game Theory and Economic Behaviour appear in Shannon’s account of SEER

Poe, odd and evens (matching pennies) and von Neumann & Morganstern’s Game Theory and Economic Behaviour; appear in Lacan’s seminar on the Putrloined letter;

Poe, odd and evens (matching pennies), von Neumann & Morganstern Game Theory and Economic Behaviour; and Lacan appear in texts by Guilbaud.

Guilbaud's What is Cybernetics? [1954] references Poe's story and in a 1953 lecture he draws an equivalence between odds & evens and matching pennies.