Ekphrasis Poem
Poetry, like other forms of literature, mostly has the surface and deeper meaning. While a person may enjoy poetry from its mere structure and form, such as stanzas, rhymes, line breaks, and meter, the true aesthetics lies in the metaphorical meaning. Consequently, besides enjoying the lyrical and rhythmical features of a piece of literature, an individual should dwell deeper in deciphering the coded message to experience a wholesome interaction with the work. Since literature is also mostly a reflection of the society, real-life scenarios, objects, or experiences can be represented in codes that viewers could easily miss what they stand for, especially due to the arbitrariness between the signal and the real thing.
For instance, the image below is the abstract representation of a 3 to 8 decoder. At first glance, an individual who is not familiar with coding and decoding in circuits would not have the slightest idea of what these sets of letters and digits refer to. The image has zeros and ones for the most part but a person with a coding background would quickly process that those are the binary numbers used in programming. It also has numbers three to seven that appear in the diagram that also has letters G, H, X, Y, and Z: again, which first-time viewers would not be able to decipher. However, a person can see an interaction between the letters and the numbers which appear to give some complex outcomes. This description refers to the experiences an individual would have taking a look at the image superficially and interpreting its elements superficially.
However, an interpretation of the binary numbers, as well as their interaction with the letters, would help in understanding that the image is a representation of the circuit of a home decoder. The table with the distribution of the binary numbers and G, H, X, Y, Z is the truth table that shows a descriptive illustration of how a decoder works. To begin with, a 3 to 8 decoder has three inputs that give eight outputs. Since it has three inputs, it means that the outputs are 23, which is equal to eight. This logic explains the presence of eight in the circuit diagram. Additionally, the digits zero to seven that appear sequentially in the illustration stand for power places, where they replace the n in the 2n value: thus, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, and 27. The functioning of the decoder is based on the NAND gate principle, where the NOT gate implements logical negation while the AND gate implements logical conjunction. In other terms, when the digital logical gate is open, its output is high while the others are zero. Evidently, only one output is high at a time depending on the combination of the three inputs X, Y, and Z. The controller needs to enable the corresponding 2n to get the desired output. For instance, when n or input is equal to zero, it implies enabling the 20 place, when it is one it requires enabling 21, and so on.
In conclusion, people may be surrounded by objects, especially electronics that they do know their functionality. It would not be surprising giving an individual the digital code of an electronic he or she interacts with daily such as a home decoder and indicate no knowledge whatsoever of what it represents. The arbitrariness between the depiction and the actual thing is often attributable to the inability to relate the abstract representation to the real object, especially by people without any background knowledge of the thing in question.
