[Leica] Reductionism isn't legit OT

[henningw at archiphoto.com (Henning Wulff)]

At 7:08 PM -0500 2/1/08, Afterswift@aol.com wrote:
>It may not be wrong consider digital as not the real thing.  Digital is a
>state of electromagnetic charge. Silver is an element. Silver,  even in a
>latent image, is still an element, which is tangible and real.  Digital
>has to be converted to analog and then into elements using some  device.
>What is real, really? :-)
>
>DaveR
>--------------------------------------------
>Hi Dave,
>
>Reductionism has it limits.

We're at the quark and lepton level now. There is no certainty that 
these are not composites as well. Reductionism goes on.




  For example, an element of and by  itself has no
>complex product value. Carbon is an element. That's all it  ever will be by
>itself. However, when carbon is part of a molecule, like  those that make 
>up a
>cell, we're in the realm of biology and medicine. Big  difference.
>
>Silver functioning as the metal it is and reduced and  fixed in chemical
>photography is not equivalent to the  electronics of digital imagemaking. In
>short, the fact that we can reduce  all matter to electrons and the 
>particles in
>the nucleus of an atom does not  make  atoms the common denominator of the
>larger entities they  compose.


No, energy is the common denominator. E=mc^2. All the rest, except 
for hydrogen is just fabrication. By fusion.

In that sense digital is probably closer to the 'real thing'. 
Photons, energy levels, energy shunting and processing until photons 
are again assembled and directed to our eyes.

Instead of all that translation into molecules, transformation of 
molecules through other methods, to molecules in the print, and only 
_then_ back to photons.




  The whole is greater than the sum of its parts
>because the whole is  different due to the mix of its constituents at 
>various
>levels of  organization.
>
>In short, a printout -- no matter how convincing it looks  -- is not the
>equivalent of a traditional silver image and never will be.  Sorry 
>to be negative.


Don't feel bad about being negative. It's a) part of the traditional 
process and b) essential to the digital workflow, because without 
electrons it wouldn't exist. Hooray for negativity!!!!





>
>Bob
>
>
>
>
>
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    *            Henning J. Wulff
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