History for Aphoristic Essay on Analog and Digital Orders, by Alan Sondheim

added:

From sondheim Fri Mar 25 00:29:56 -0500 2005
From: sondheim
Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 00:29:56 -0500
Subject: Some digital noise
Message-ID: <20050325002956-0500@www.as.wvu.edu:8000>
In-Reply-To: <20050319064239-0500@www.as.wvu.edu:8000>

I'll try to answer briefly everyone here? First, the point is that neurons etc. are neither analog nor digital; Bateson among others addressed that years ago and I don't think the situation is any different at the moment. The analog btw is defined, not as digital's absence, but re above, is _there,_ etc. There are a number of statements. One can't define beyond that; the inherence of the analog and the real is related to the notion of the real as 'idiotic' (forget the theorist's name here, I'm tired); it's not given to this sort of specificity, except in various specific situations in which continuity is demanded, i.e. analog computation for example.
The point is that on the level of the lifeworld there is such a distinction but anywhere anyone else is entanglement.
I'm not sure where you find uncountable and countable infinities in the analog, by the way. In the lifeworld these don't exist; the most one can hope for is inaccessibly high or low numbers. Robinson's infinitesimals fit in here as well. If you go to the quantum level, yes, there are infinities, but there, there is entanglement and the problematic of the orders.
re: teamtech, I couldn't disagree more. I don't think most thought is discrete at all. Look at Jacques Hadamard's The Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field - Einstein was one of the interviewed for this now antiquated book - which pretty much says what I've noticed as well, that mathesis in practice is clouded, analogic if not analog, highly inspecific; it's only when the result is written, i.e. when the residue is inscribed, that specificity appears. There's a lot of work on this; some of the stuff in in semiotics bibliography I appended touches on it, even Bateson. Re: Robert, I think Heidegger's a bit silly here. The mathematical doesn't will anything; people do. This is literally all the difference in the world. And no, the analog isn't always already metaphysics - it's flesh, body, it's all those continuities we are immersed in, in everyday life, presymbolic, the noisy chora perhaps. As far as temporality goes, I'm not following you here but temporality disappears in the small, i.e. foam-like structure of space-time. No one said it was simple; if anything Husserl pointed out the complexity of its internal analogic elements. Finally, to replicate {x} doesn't mean to experience it, or at least not to experience it the way we do; we have enough difficulties with the problems of other minds. - Alan