binary
By: Quigley
on Friday, January 24th 2003 at 7:55pm
Whence came this obscene notion that the answer to all life may be found in circuitry? Cannot the masses see that there are more than two states to even the smallest decision? That the world is a greater marvel than the sum of an innumerable myriad of 1's and 0's?
Take a drum. Some are made of metal and plastic; others of wood and hide. Strike either, and a sound is born. The sound is real. It exists, as a tangible effect of intangible energy, in the same world in which we, by nature, exist. Record the drum's sound onto a vinyl record. What have you now? Sound preserved in full, as its exertion on material. Play it back, and you have the sound again. Analogue, and perfect. Distorted, perhaps, by the flaws of technology, or by the flaws of the media, but not by the essence of the process.
Take a photograph now, with one of those old fashioned devices the ancients devised. Again you have a tangible product of intangible energy. Again the essence of life is preseved in full, again analogue, and perfect. You can magnify as closely as you wish; the resolution of light's imprint on a negative is as clear as the radiation that caused it.
Computers are wonderful tools, and digital science a wonderful invention. But there are limits to the terrific and practical derivatives of Boole's logic. Limits in application, and limits in theory. To use digital cameras and digital music and digital communication is most helpful. To constrain the mind, however, to these exposures only, is to deprive one's self of the glorious essence of existence, of the indescribable elements and axioms of life that fit even into the gaps in Newton's calculus. Let us not allow it to go too far, for I fear that we are balanced on the edge of such constraint, and such deprivation, and we seem bent to fall.
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Within the four walls of this room are nine computers. I, Morpheotron, have put to sleep all but one of them, which I now puppet to mine evil ends. But lying behind me, to my left, to my right, those leering pools of tranquilized electrons, waiting for the gates of their own sick breed of life again to open, are as threatening as a room full of sleeping lions.
Blech :)
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Comments for binary
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5 Comments
jesta_187 Wrote...
Sunday, February 2nd 2003 at 10:46pm
hmmm, i tend to agree.
the music i make is a mixture of analogue and digital, old and new, earth and steel, metal and techno. my collaborator in this project is obsessed with digital. 'theres no point in using analogue because the sample rate on a cd is a set amount, computer computer computer' he whines, to which i reply 'and what if i wanted to put this onto vinyl, or cassette, or reel to reel tape?' he has no answer. (****there is unlimited sample rate on magnetic tape) and although much of my music is computer based, i still feel the need to keep at least one, preferably more, element of analogue in it. for practicality, improvement, culture or just plain nostagia? i couldnt possibly tell you. maybe so i just keep my feet on the ground, or maybe so that i am not consumed completely by the ever growing flame that is modern technology. the same goes for my art, some is computer generated, some is just honest to god pencil or charcoal or paint, some is a mixture. we will not do well to use only one medium, instead we should experiment with EVERYTHING until we find exactly what we are looking for.
good videotape is better than dvd. good audio tape is better than cd. vinyl is better than everything. there is nothing worse than an mp3, except maybe a slightly out of tune guitar.
Newt the Fruit Wrote...
Thursday, March 6th 2003 at 8:08pm
Well, technically is not analog because the photographic film has grains of a silver compound that react to light. Making them spatially digital (not continuous as analog) and each individual grain of silver compound *probably* has discrete levels of changes based on light energy received, so it would also be spectrally digital (not continuous as analog is)
And then you have to look at the observer, what is the optical resolution of the eye (rods/cones?) it is not continous over the inner surface of the eye, but many receivers arranged on the back of the eyeball.
Blah, blah, blah... you get the picture.
Newt
Canadian Wildebeest Wrote...
Friday, March 7th 2003 at 5:37pm
But then we get down to the hypothetical problem inherent to measurement, you can always cut something in half, theoretically; like 1 degree celcius, but, say when you get down to the very smallest particle in the known universe, say a quark, and assign a unit of measure to it... what's the purpose in cutting that in half? You can represent anything as "digital" as long as you have a large enough scale, but there's a lack of... reason involved at some point. Humans do not have the muscular control to move within micrometers in a controlled manner, but we still measure in this unit because we have the means to. You're using the term analog as if it is a constant stream, but if you stretch the time frame out enough, you can see, for instance, water is not a stream, but a spray of droplets. Analog would be... meaningless. Like my babble.
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Elvish Kitty Wrote...
Monday, January 27th 2003 at 9:19am
Ooooo...that was coo
And speaking of recording...