Is Reality Digital or Analog?

"Is Reality Digital or Analog?" In view of the recent discussions, this
may be of interest:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...igital-analong

George Musser writes: "Last week, the Foundation Questions Institute
announced the winners of its third essay contest, which Scientific
American co-sponsored. (I helped to decide on the question, judge the
essays, and hand out the awards at the World Science Festival.) The essay
question was, "Is Reality Digital or Analog?" Is nature, at root,
continuous or discretized? You can make a powerful case for either
option. Or both options. Or neither. A venerable tradition in
essay-writing is to question the question."

OT: what an awful word "discretized"! It should be simply "discrete".

Cheers,
David

On Fri, 24 Jun 2011 17:59:50 +0100, "David J Taylor"
wrote:
: "Is Reality Digital or Analog?" In view of the recent discussions, this
: may be of interest:
:
: http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...igital-analong
:
: George Musser writes: "Last week, the Foundation Questions Institute
: announced the winners of its third essay contest, which Scientific
: American co-sponsored. (I helped to decide on the question, judge the
: essays, and hand out the awards at the World Science Festival.) The essay
: question was, "Is Reality Digital or Analog?" Is nature, at root,
: continuous or discretized? You can make a powerful case for either
: option. Or both options. Or neither. A venerable tradition in
: essay-writing is to question the question."
:
: OT: what an awful word "discretized"! It should be simply "discrete".

Actually, that depends on how it (reality) got to be that way. ;^)

But the original question is an excellent one. The older I get, the less sure
I am about the answer. I guess I still think the answer is "digital", but I've
become increasingly less certain that there's a difference.

Bob

On Fri, 24 Jun 2011 16:52:50 -0400, Robert Coe wrote:

On Fri, 24 Jun 2011 17:59:50 +0100, "David J Taylor"
wrote:
: "Is Reality Digital or Analog?" In view of the recent discussions, this
: may be of interest:
:
: http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...igital-analong
:
: George Musser writes: "Last week, the Foundation Questions Institute
: announced the winners of its third essay contest, which Scientific
: American co-sponsored. (I helped to decide on the question, judge the
: essays, and hand out the awards at the World Science Festival.) The essay
: question was, "Is Reality Digital or Analog?" Is nature, at root,
: continuous or discretized? You can make a powerful case for either
: option. Or both options. Or neither. A venerable tradition in
: essay-writing is to question the question."
:
: OT: what an awful word "discretized"! It should be simply "discrete".

Actually, that depends on how it (reality) got to be that way. ;^)

But the original question is an excellent one. The older I get, the less sure
I am about the answer. I guess I still think the answer is "digital", but I've
become increasingly less certain that there's a difference.

Is time quantised? - Possibly.

Is gravity quantised? - Doesn't appear to be.

Regards,

Eric Stevens

On 2011-06-24 12:59:50 -0400, David J Taylor said:

"Is Reality Digital or Analog?" In view of the recent discussions,
this may be of interest:


http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...igital-analong

George

Musser writes: "Last week, the Foundation Questions Institute announced
the winners of its third essay contest, which Scientific American
co-sponsored. (I helped to decide on the question, judge the essays,
and hand out the awards at the World Science Festival.) The essay
question was, "Is Reality Digital or Analog?" Is nature, at root,
continuous or discretized? You can make a powerful case for either
option. Or both options. Or neither. A venerable tradition in
essay-writing is to question the question."

OT: what an awful word "discretized"! It should be simply "discrete".

Cheers,
David

I think the answer is neither digital nor analog, but quantized. That
is probably closer to digital than to analog in concept, but maybe
closer to analog than digital in "appearance." And then there's the
principle that once you get to the quantum level, things get really
really weird.
--
Michael

On Fri, 24 Jun 2011 22:24:33 -0400, Michael
wrote:

On 2011-06-24 12:59:50 -0400, David J Taylor said:

"Is Reality Digital or Analog?" In view of the recent discussions,
this may be of interest:


http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...igital-analong

George

Musser writes: "Last week, the Foundation Questions Institute announced
the winners of its third essay contest, which Scientific American
co-sponsored. (I helped to decide on the question, judge the essays,
and hand out the awards at the World Science Festival.) The essay
question was, "Is Reality Digital or Analog?" Is nature, at root,
continuous or discretized? You can make a powerful case for either
option. Or both options. Or neither. A venerable tradition in
essay-writing is to question the question."

OT: what an awful word "discretized"! It should be simply "discrete".

Cheers,
David

I think the answer is neither digital nor analog, but quantized. That
is probably closer to digital than to analog in concept, but maybe
closer to analog than digital in "appearance." And then there's the
principle that once you get to the quantum level, things get really
really weird.

I'd say neither, though at very small scales reality acts more
"digital" in that it comes in quanta, which are discrete packages, but
at large scale, it acts "analog." Neither is really a good
characterization of reality.

On Fri, 24 Jun 2011 23:04:24 -0400, rwalker
wrote:

snip


I'd say neither, though at very small scales reality acts more
"digital" in that it comes in quanta, which are discrete packages, but
at large scale, it acts "analog." Neither is really a good
characterization of reality.

I guess I should have added, in my opinion.


Reality IS. Digital and analog REPRESENT.

"rwalker" wrote in message
...
[]
I'd say neither, though at very small scales reality acts more
"digital" in that it comes in quanta, which are discrete packages, but
at large scale, it acts "analog." Neither is really a good
characterization of reality.

So the answer may be: "It depends how closely you look".
Nice quantum mechanical answer!

Cheers,
David

On Sat, 25 Jun 2011 14:21:35 +1200, Eric Stevens
wrote:
: On Fri, 24 Jun 2011 16:52:50 -0400, Robert Coe wrote:
:
: On Fri, 24 Jun 2011 17:59:50 +0100, "David J Taylor"
: wrote:
: : "Is Reality Digital or Analog?" In view of the recent discussions, this
: : may be of interest:
: :
: : http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...igital-analong
: :
: : George Musser writes: "Last week, the Foundation Questions Institute
: : announced the winners of its third essay contest, which Scientific
: : American co-sponsored. (I helped to decide on the question, judge the
: : essays, and hand out the awards at the World Science Festival.) The
: : essay question was, "Is Reality Digital or Analog?" Is nature, at root,
: : continuous or discretized? You can make a powerful case for either
: : option. Or both options. Or neither. A venerable tradition in
: : essay-writing is to question the question."
: :
: : OT: what an awful word "discretized"! It should be simply "discrete".
:
: Actually, that depends on how it (reality) got to be that way. ;^)
:
: But the original question is an excellent one. The older I get, the less sure
: I am about the answer. I guess I still think the answer is "digital", but I've
: become increasingly less certain that there's a difference.
:
: Is time quantised? - Possibly.

I guess it's fair to say that in some formulations, spacetime is effectively
quantized by its dimensionality.

: Is gravity quantised? - Doesn't appear to be.

Because nobody has identified a "graviton"? At least to a first approximation,
gravity depends only on the curvature, not the dimensionality, of spacetime. I
suppose the curvature itself may be quantized, but would that necessarily give
rise to gravitons? Of course particle physicists have a longstanding tradition
of eventually convincing themselves that they've found any particle they've
been looking for, no matter how bizarre or improbable. ;^)

Bob

"Robert Coe" wrote in
...

..............................................

rise to gravitons? Of course particle physicists have a longstanding
tradition
of eventually convincing themselves that they've found any particle
they've
been looking for, no matter how bizarre or improbable. ;^)

Bob


The Higgs seems to be giving them trouble!!

On Sat, 25 Jun 2011 06:52:50 +0100, "David J Taylor"
wrote:

"rwalker" wrote in message
.. .
[]
I'd say neither, though at very small scales reality acts more
"digital" in that it comes in quanta, which are discrete packages, but
at large scale, it acts "analog." Neither is really a good
characterization of reality.

So the answer may be: "It depends how closely you look".
Nice quantum mechanical answer!

Cheers,
David

Glad to be of service!