Don't know if we have many science experts on the forum? Being in a rather philosophical mood and inspired by a Youtube interview with Richard Feynman explaining some interesting science phenomena (like ice, elastic bands and magnets), it sort of set my thinking hat wondering whether life at its core could be described as digital or analogue? He explained the concept of order/disorder in a system (which I think is linked to entropy in laws of thermodynamics) that to me seemed strikingly similar to how synchronous digital systems function (stable/unstable synchronised to a clock pulse). The latter is a subject that is more familiar to me. It made me ponder the idea whether reality, could in fact be explained as a digital system even though our perception of it appears analogue?
To my delight found that there are a number of discussions surrounding this, including this very interesting collection FXQi Community - 2011 Is Reality Digital or Analog? Winning Essays.
I've read through a couple of essays but it's quite a tricky subject for me to understand as it appears to involve quantum physics and black hole theory that are daunting to me. Concensus seems that this can't really be proven at the time, it could be either, both or neither, :nutter: but that there are still some interesting things that we need to discover about our universe with respect to gravity etc.
Why bring up this topic in an audio forum? I laughed when I expanded the idea to music that life was digital then audio in its analogue form would be considered artificial and would also mean that our much maligned digital audio system could potentially be a far more elegant and accurate representation of nature than one would have thought. Perhaps audible/perceptible jitter is the result of introducing an imperfect clock that results in a disharmony with nature that affect our enjoyment of digital music.
Anyway, not sure where I'm headed with this, and realise it might all sound a bit wacky, but it was fun experimenting with ideas and trying to turn things upside down. Its fun to think that there is still so much we still have to discover about our universe and that even in our audio world, all might not be what it appears to be.
To my delight found that there are a number of discussions surrounding this, including this very interesting collection FXQi Community - 2011 Is Reality Digital or Analog? Winning Essays.
I've read through a couple of essays but it's quite a tricky subject for me to understand as it appears to involve quantum physics and black hole theory that are daunting to me. Concensus seems that this can't really be proven at the time, it could be either, both or neither, :nutter: but that there are still some interesting things that we need to discover about our universe with respect to gravity etc.
Why bring up this topic in an audio forum? I laughed when I expanded the idea to music that life was digital then audio in its analogue form would be considered artificial and would also mean that our much maligned digital audio system could potentially be a far more elegant and accurate representation of nature than one would have thought. Perhaps audible/perceptible jitter is the result of introducing an imperfect clock that results in a disharmony with nature that affect our enjoyment of digital music.
Anyway, not sure where I'm headed with this, and realise it might all sound a bit wacky, but it was fun experimenting with ideas and trying to turn things upside down. Its fun to think that there is still so much we still have to discover about our universe and that even in our audio world, all might not be what it appears to be.
