Logic and people become data

What is gained—and what is erased—when reasoning or a person becomes a symbolic record?

Boolean algebra made logical form calculable. Hollerith cards turned selected attributes of people into sortable fields and electrical counts, making large institutions faster and more capable.

A representation increases operational power by preserving selected distinctions and deleting the rest; the deletion is a technical and political choice.

Reconstruct the mechanism

1. Choose propositions or human attributes to encode
2. Map each distinction into a stable symbol or field
3. Apply algebraic or mechanical selection operations
4. Interpret the aggregate result while auditing omitted reality

Normalize a proposition into Boolean operations, then design and query a ten-record punched-card census. Perform a privacy and omission audit.

Evidence and uncertainty

Historical accounts of data processing and state power need careful source comparison. Do not make either celebratory or accusatory claims broader than the evidence.

• The Laws of Thought — Project Gutenberg · public domain
• Hollerith machine — United States Census Bureau
• Locating the Victims — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum