Each formalism can be applied to a machine since every formal system is defined by its mechanism. In this concatenation of formalism, mechanism and machine, the incalculability and the undecidability of formalism are also transferred to the machine, as the development from Goedel to Turing shows. This produces the limits of formalization, calculation and speakability. Man, equipped with paper, pencil and eraser and subject to strict discipline is actually a universal machine. The idea that machines could think, i.e., process symbols and give them meaning on their own, which untill then had been regarded as, a privilege of man or reality, has become more tangible than ever before.
Autonomous symbols are really asensation in the history of civilization.
It is no longer man who paints animals or machines on walls. Now the explosion of the arts, which is at the same time an explosion of signs has led to machines drawing signs by themselves. Tools no longer serve to fullfill man's will and to give signs material, real form. Rather, tools themselves set signs and the realm of signs sets reality. Symbol-processing machines, such as the computer, have made signs autonomous agents.