Analog and digital: a fundamental dichotomy
By Luc Sala, Aug. 2015
These days most people think that digital means 0/1 binary coding, but the notion applies to all coding with a discrete and limited set and the difference between analog and digital is very fundamental, also in a philosophical context.
The digital age started when God commissioned Adam to name all animals and birds (Genesis 2:19) and the process of ‘Naming is Framing’ started. Applying a limited set of symbols like the names of species is essential digital, a good way to organize things, but also restricts. Analog refers to continuous, non discrete phenomena, things like love and beauty; most things in nature are essentially analog. The word digital comes from digitus (Latin for finger), as fingers are often used for discrete counting. Numbers, letters, and names are symbolic systems of representation, with discrete and limited sets. Using them requires following certain rules and poses restrictions. Writing is thus digital, while speaking analog.
There are clear
advantages for using digital. In technology the error reduction quality of
digital signals, while allowing compression, made modern computers and
communication possible. It’s not all man-made.Nature
also uses digital, DNA/RNA is essentially a digital copy system with 4
base-pairs and self-repairing codons, leading to just
20 amino-acids. Error reduction and elimination of noise is where digital
excels. Note that our gene-pool survived countless generations using this digital
backbone of life.
Deconstruction of a whole into standardized parts and discrete sets of attributes, like building with standard blocks, has obvious advantages. Neil Gershenfeld of MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms, who champions digital production (FabLab, 3D printing) as an extension of digital computation and communication, uses the example of Lego to illustrate how discrete and limited set components are effective, fast and error reducing. The Lego example however also shows that while one can construct very complex structures, achieving beauty remains problematic, due to the ‘digital’ limitations in sizes, colors and angles.
The distinction in analog and digital is fundamental. As one of the essential dichotomies in philosophical terms the first division of the monad (absolute) can be termed as good or bad, or love and truth. However, analog/digital makes a lot of sense. In our increasing digital age the distinction can help to understand the direction of human and societal evolution. The digital creeps upon us. Slowly all our media are digital, and the most used drug these days to escape the analog reality by shifting time and place to retreat in childlike state behind a safe screen is the smartphone. Texting is obviously digital. For many, clicking on their digital pocket-secretary replaces the analog medium of speech.
Digital asserts that with the limited set of symbols and the threshold property of exponential reduction in error, we can clean up communication, making it faster and more reliable. Today we take these functions for granted in our digital world of internet, computers and media. Abandoning ambiguity, the truth reduced to yes or no answers, Wikipedia as the entropic, medicore standard of human knowledge.
Time is analog, but clocktime defaults to more digital, sequential. Sending a message and reading, for instance, takes a little time, while beauty is timeless. Clocktime ties us down, limits us. It is the timeless state of the soul, the higher self where we can get in touch with union, the absolute that supersedes all dichotomy. Manifestation is essentially the process where consciousness uses time (which space follows instantaneously) to create something tangible. The quantum physicist talks about this as the collapse of the probability curve. One could say that God uses time to create the opportunity to experience the distinction between love and truth, which can be seen as the lesson we have to learn in life.
However, by equating digital to truth, analog to love comes to mind. Digital uses rules and discrete sets, where something is true or not; while analog remains more continuous, unlimited, unsynchronized, like love or beauty.
While the Law is digital, Justice reflects analog. Here we touch on the importance of understanding the difference and the implications of the difference. Instead of thinking in terms of good or bad, social or liberal, left or right, the distinction between analog and digital approaches can be used to understand many fundamental issues in culture, religion and society.
Digital is about borders, distinction between you and me, your land, my land. Don’t enter my territory! It is about kingdoms, vested interests, truth in science and being right, justified. Analog is about sharing, about common interest, about timeless sustenance, responsibility for values, rather than exploiting the borders. It is slower, takes more time, more feeling with more mistakes likely as there is less effective error reduction. Digital is more about measuring, feedback, fast response and effectiveness. Neither is better. Both have their points, but sometimes the balance leans towards a side enabling recognition of a shift.
Take the legal system, something that grew out of games and ritual into a code! The Anglo-Saxon approach is very much based on rules; American contracts stipulate each and every eventuality. What is not included in a clause is not part of the deal. This system is more digital than the Roman/Rhineland Law approach, where principles, fair play, a sense of due diligence are more prevalent.
In religion we see a similar division. There are rule based and thus more digital religions. The Jewish, Sunni Muslim and reformatory Christian religions tend to stick to the book; the set of rules is fixed, no bending allowed. You are with us or against us! Truth cannot be compromised! Then there are the more lenient religions, where rules are less strict, forgiveness and love are more prevalent, like the Catholic Church.
This distinction has deep roots. In essence we talk about magical and anti-magical religions. The more analog ones cherish and honor the mystical, with ritual access to the intangible and timeless over sticking to the rules. People like Buddha, Mohammed, and Luther are typically digital reformers, doing away with the hierarchical pomp and circumstance, the ritual abundance, the saints and the freedom. They steered back to the rules, the essence, the barebones. One cannot deny that the difference between the digital and the analog approach has been the root of many wars. Even today the difference between Sunni and Shia continues to cause much struggle and violence. Some cultures are clearly digital and rule based, like the Balinese Hindu/Buddhist culture.
Understanding the difference between rule based and discrete digital and more continuous, flowing and timeless analog applies to many fields. In the medical field, the digital, modern way is to use chemicals, surgery and ‘hard’ methods, while the ritual and spiritual approach to healing heralds more analog, holistic, restorative balance.
Progress seems digital. By way of our emergent human self-consciousness we became obsessed with truth, inventions, individual recognition and what we now call science, trading in love and connectedness. We started to live in larger groups, developed individuality. Needing symbols to communicate, language developed beyond the merely indicative. World culture moves toward a digital approach, with more rules and ‘hard’ truths while being less guided by principles, moral values, intuitions and undefined feelings.
For example, the oriental law of karma reflects the force of change in the universe, seen as a fundamental balance mechanism in the wider reality that includes the intangible spiritual realm. It is analog, so counting one’s actions as in scoring or points is thus senseless. What matters encompasses totality. The time-arrow of cause and effect is a digital one. Normal causality remains time bound and can be falsified as true or false, again very discrete with error reduction. Inverting (or escaping) the cause and effect relation offers one way of defining magic, the analog opposite of rational truth. For many, the most vivid experience of the analog and digital realms merging results from psychedelic tripping. In an LSD or ayahuasca journey there are no distinct truths, rules, times or even errors, everything flows, the symbolic merges with the presence.
Digital is discrete, fast, rational, noise-resistant, left-brain, male, but lacks the beauty, the gradual, the love and wisdom of analog, right brain, female, holistic.
Luc Sala is a Dutch writer about ritual, sacred journeys, cyberspace. www.lucsala.nl
