Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/10/14
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1999 11:22:01 +0200 From: "Anthony Atkielski" <anthony@atkielski.com> Subject: Re: [Leica] paperless??? From: Lee, Jonathan <Jonathan.Lee@hrcc.on.ca> Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 1999 05:20 Subject: RE: [Leica] paperless??? > Digital means a symbolic representation of something > in NUMBERS. <<<Digital means a symbolic representation, period. It is somewhat of a misnomer, but that's what it means in practice. It is used even when the symbols are not numbers per se.>>> No. You start here on the wrong foot. > The Dead Sea Scrolls are not a digital recording because > they used WORDS, which are symbols but are not > digits. <<<All forms of the written word are digital representations, because they use symbols to represent information. Paintings are analog representations, because they represent information using a direct physical model of that information.>>> If it represents a tree it is a "symbolic representation" of the tree. So the word "tree" is representing the "tree" The "digital information" is also representing the tree. Or as you have it, it is "representing information". This leads to "digital information is symbolic of information." Or, symbolic of "real information". You have the impossible capability of going beyond words so as to say what is a symbol and what is being symbolized? That would mean that you need to "see" the tree and that's real. A blind person can also have a meaningful conversation about a tree. Is this then all "symbolism"? The visual impression of the tree is only a small part of the web of contextual meanings that "tree" can even be said to exist. You are trying to get outside of grammar, to define by resorting to the "thing in itself" and this is going nowhere. So "digital" is representing the "real" and a word is representing the real. So that means that a word is digital because they are both representing, possibly the same "real" thing? That leaves you with symbols that are nullified as they are equivalents of other symbols, and an equal relationship - generic - of a description to its "subject". You have no place for the "information". You just say that the two are representing "information" and so they are of the same quality or essence. How can you speak of "information" if every description is symbolic? You must either cancel out the symbols or stop chasing the grammar trap tail. What do you say if you claim that a digital information is representing a word? Or the opposite. The digital; did it come from nothing? . The painting represents information by way of a "physical"model of that information. What is the difference between physical representation and digital or written information? If they are symbolic then by definition they are not "the something itself". So at best one is "more or less symbolic" and this is judged by way of an apriori symbolism itself. If this is not the case then you are making a distinction between representing "in reality" and representing "by model". That amounts to the former NOT being a representation at all. You are now weighing representations of information when your own arguments show no knowledge of what you may call the "information". Or is the painting "twice" as representative, or, more properly a doublestaged one? <<< following representations of 3 and 4 are analog representations: ****** ******** >>> Not necessarily. These are symbolic manifestations of numbers in the same way that 3,4 are. There may be languages where these play the exact same role as "3, 4". Making the distinction fail to provide anything substantial. <<< exact value represented depends on the exact physical length of each line. The following representations of 3 and 4 are digital:>>> 3 4 >>> <<<exact value represented depends on the meaning of each symbol.>>> - --------------- The exact value is then a joining of two symbols. So the value is not symbolic because it is 'dependent' on symbols and their meanings. The symbols are merely taken to refer to the other symbols which are not primary nor secondary. The symbol "means" another symbol according to your reasoning. 3 is a "value" but also a "symbol" so the exact meaning of the symbol depends on the meaning of it's own symbolic reference. There is nothing more exact about either. - --------- Similarly, a circle drawn on a piece of paper is an analog representation, but a mathematical equation that describes a circle is a digital representation.>>> What is it exactly that the drawn circle is representing? There is no circle but the one I draw, nothing more real. The mathematics are describing the representation? Then that means that mathematics do not have pure truth in "information", real, but only a representation of that. This is not the case however. Mathematics do not describe symbols or representations. They are applied/ Mathematics doesn't discriminate between draws circles and circles in nature. -- Anthony - -----------------------------