$10,000 question: Is reality digital or analog?

Aqueous Id said:
Certain properties of particles, like velocity, are continuous. (Note, if velocity were not continuous, acceleration would be problematic.)

Other properties, like frequency, are continuous. The blackbody radiation, for example, spans a continuum of frequencies.

There is no velocity (less that c) that is prohibited. There is no frequency that is prohibited. There is no requirement for either of these to be restricted to some integer series.

So reality can't be discrete.

As for reality as a simulation, that seems more like a question for Sister Morphine, the mind of Buddha, or Billy T's parietal lobe. I don't make any such presumption. Suppose reality just is what it is: mostly a continuum, plus a quantum world, plus a virtual world (not meaning a simulation), plus whatever creates the arrow of time, plus whatever bends time (and space and mass), plus whatever creates the continuum, quantum reality, virtual reality, relativity, entanglement &etc., etc., etc. In particular, suppose reality really includes a Big Bang that creates spacetime and therefore always was.

As hard as it is to get my arms around all of that, there is at least "best evidence" to draw conclusions from, to trace the nature of reality. I just can't get my arms around the idea of simulation any more than I can get them around the idea of a Supreme Commander of the Universe who, no doubt, is at the joystick, fumbling for another quarter to stick into the slot before time's up. I'm all for legalization of pot, I just don't think it's the breakfast of realists.
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Thanks for the explanation, Aqueous.
 
Billy T said:
Your text, now bold, is their claim and quite possibly their honest belief, but inconsistent with the physical laws one of which is valid detailed vision does not occur with the eyes closed so I would need testable proof, not a self report of something a doctor may have said, like: "The blood pressure is only 70 now." which could easily cause the patient to form an image (in his mind) of a gauge with needle pointing at 70. (It is hard for me not to form that image, just by writing this. What about you? Did you form a mental image of a gauge when reading?)

Do you have a link to any well controlled reports of these miracles (knowledge not possible for the patient to have by regular means)? I agree that some people do recall things that were said while they were in a coma, etc. That is rare and strange, but no miracle.

I claim OBE & NDE are experience created (as all experiences are) in the Real Time Simulation running in the parietal brain, and as the only direct knowledge humans have, in some sense, are more "real" than the physical world which is INFERRED to exist from these direct experiences (but may not exist as Bishop Berkeley argued logically and completely consistently that the physical world inferred does not actually exist more than 300 years ago).

I have a Ph.D. in physics and believe the physical world does exist without any miracles (violations of physical laws, many of which are well known to man). For example, that there is an force* (gravity) between all mass pairs. Thus if someone´s OBE has their body "floating" just below the ceiling then I say (assuming they are not lying) that is part of their parietal created reality but not a physical reality that occurred as it would be a violation of the laws of gravity.

It is interesting to understand why Bishop Berkeley thought the non-existing physical world that God was causing him to experience appeared to very consistently follow a set of physical laws. The good bishop noted that only if the physical world appeared to have seldom violated regular laws (rules of behavior) could God work miracles when he chose to. I.e. miracles, are by definition, violations of the physical laws and thus miracles could not happen if there were no physical laws, which are almost always consistently obeyed.

Berkeley was very logical and intelligent and did not accept the reality of the physical world. - From where and how would all that mass come from? ** Many philosophers and others have tried to find a flaw in Berkeley´s logic or some how show that the physical world does indeed exist, but in more than 300 years none have! One famous attempt was a man who kicked a stone and said, with minor pain in his toe: "I demonstrate the world is real, thus!" but of course that, like all the other attacks on Berkeley´s POV proves nothing. - God gave him that experience of pain in his toe and the visual experience of the stone flying forward, etc. as at that time God did not want to make a miracle.

* One can describe it as a mass warping of space, instead of a "force" if one likes a more modern POV, but either description results in the same attractive acceleration on objects free to move. (Like the two descriptions of 12 vs a dozen eggs - either is the same to the cook.)

** This question remains unanswered to this day but in modern terms the question becomes: "From where did all the energy of the "big bang" come from?" Berkeley had a logical correct answer, consistent with his Christian faith, but physicists, like me, do not.
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The phiysical world does exist, philosophers should be crucified for saying that the physical world is not real, it is real, but we can only see just a tiny portion of it. If they say the the physical world is not real, I should test their hypothesis by killing them all so that we can prove since all the physical world is not real, which means philosophers are also not real, which means you're not real for me as much as I'm not real for you. You can prove that by killing all the philosophers, they sure would not be real anymore after you kill all of them.

Now, the OBE and NDE:
The problem with these accounts is that whenever this is tested by placing something in the room that the person could not normally see (for instance a piece of paper with a word on it placed on a bookshelf above the patients sight level) they never report it correctly. They only report on things they could see normally and have prior knowledge of.
However people don't see exactly what is happening but they can say what the surgeon is doing exactly at any given moment.
However they are assuming patients can see just about every detail which is wrong since they look from the top and can't always see the details.

Don't read just scientific magazines ask people and their doctors what they have, if you asked for the information, I watched this on Viasat Explorer "Against all the odds", plus there are reports of many people experience this, and their doctors/surgeons confirming it that what they saw was NOT an illusion/hallucination, but the real observation.

Like I said science can prove ALMOST everything, but it doesn't explain how a person would see themselves from a different vantage point. Or how a person could see things that others were doing when that person having the out of body experience or near death experience had no brain activity, and especially when that person could see things taking place in other rooms outside of the room they were in.
There are some things that scientists will never be able to prove using science. It's like those who have E.S.P. experiences. Something happens, but it happens when it wants to. You cannot control it. You cannot take it to the lab testing with tightly, 100% controlled conditions/experiments to see it if it exists or it does not exist at all. You also cannot repeat the experiment multiple times if "it doesn't want to be repeated".
The only thing I really found is this (and right now I really don't have time to dig for it):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/19/health.mentalhealth

Here are some documented and confirmed cases of people who saw their own operations...:
http://www.near-death.com/experiences/research11.html
http://www.near-death.com/experiences/evidence01.html

(look at Pam Reynolds' case) I saw it on Viasat Explorer, "Against all the odds", and I saw her neuro-surgeon, he confirmed everything she said.
 
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Emil said:
No,I'm not talking about waves.
"In physics, a wave is a disturbance or oscillation that travels through spacetime..."
I'm talking about signals
"A signal as referred to in communication systems, signal processing, and electrical engineering "is a function that conveys information about the behavior or attributes of some phenomenon".[1] In the physical world, any quantity exhibiting variation in time or variation in space (such as an image) is potentially a signal that might provide information on the status of a physical system, or convey a message between observers, among other possibilities."

So...


"The atom is a basic unit of matter.."



Not states,signals. A discrete signal is discontinuous. As I said:"The step function (unit step function) only exists in mathematics."


"Because a binary bit can only have one of two different values, either 0 or 1, any physical medium capable of switching between two saturated states may be used to represent a bit."

And so on...

But we do not have the same opinion?
Reality is not discrete but continuous.
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Yes, I think we do. The rest is probably just a normal amount of confusion.

As for signals vs waves, I was assuming we were talking about external reality which wouldn't necessarily include signals of any kind, but which certainly covers waves.
 
Is reality digital or analog?

Camping at 1:30 am on a Friday .

I went camping last weekend. I set up in the trees 90 miles SW of Chicago at Starved Rock State Park. Around one o'clock am, the fire was out and I was ready to shower. I took a walk, maybe 1/3 of a mile to the shower. With the building in sight, I noticed a meteor moving from East to West just below Arcturus and about as bright as the star. It was one of the brightest meteors I have seen in years. Close to a top 10. I have only seen two with me own eyes and in person that either made it to the ground or broke a part in a shallow explosion.

After the shower I went back to the tent and sat up listening and texting the sounds I heard. There was a conversation to the north. A waxing and waning sound to the south barely audible and way out in the distant south. I heard foot steps. Someone in the near conversation laughed. The waxing and waning sound became a generator, then a car looking for a camp site. That same car left the camp and headed south. Some time later the car was heading north, turned onto Rt. 71 and drove west. Something walked close by my tent walking through leaves. Another person in the distance laughed. Doors were being closed all over the place. A group laughed, and I spent the next 2 hours in tears. It's 130 in the morning. I'm camping. It's quiet time, and everyone is making so much noise.

The next day I sat along the shore of the Illinois River. It looked like the River was moving up stream. At times it felt like I was moving up stream though I was sitting still. This illusion seemed only to be over the water. An hour or two passed and I was ready to leave. I was sitting in my car and a boat went by the dock about 15 feet off shore. I felt that sensation of moving and saw that same illusion where the river looked like it was moving up stream, only it was in the place where I was sitting on the dock 5 minutes earlier.

Final Thought:
I want to say that because my timing was perfect to happen to get up and get out of the trees to see that meteor. As if it was digital, but it's more like being in tune with the surroundings.

The sounds though random and scattered have a pattern to them. And while I did not hear related sounds back to back and in order, over time I was able to connect all the related sounds into their single components. The only shared reality was the laughter. I had no idea what everyone else was laughing about, but I know what I was laughing about.

At the River I questioned if what I was looking at was real. It's hard to describe because I don't know the name of the illusion I was sitting in is called. It's not optical, refraction, reflection. It's really something I think I should know. I asked whether or not the energy I felt was real energy that I could tap into. And wondered if what I was looking at was a fine thread of fabric of which all things are made.

To answer the question:
I have defined my idea of digital, and analog. So, because I can't pop in and out of time on a conscious level, reality is analog with events happening in a predeterimed sequence.

I have to first ask if time exists.
 
It would have to be analog, wouldn't it ?? An analog event is the ENTIRE event; whereas, something that is digital is merely a representation of that event. It is slices of time captured in a digital format... an audio CD only seems the same as the actual concert because it captures so many clips of sounds per second that our ears can't hear a difference... but it is still only a partial representation.
 
Snocrash: The following ignores the implications of quantum theory.
It would have to be analog, wouldn't it ?? An analog event is the ENTIRE event; whereas, something that is digital is merely a representation of that event. It is slices of time captured in a digital format... an audio CD only seems the same as the actual concert because it captures so many clips of sounds per second that our ears can't hear a difference... but it is still only a partial representation.​
The classical world of our senses is built on a quantum reality, where probabilistic laws apply.

The Uncertainty Principle & random processes at the quantum level negate the notion of smooth trajectories & an analogue reality. What our senses perceive is exactly analogous to the audio CD: Discrete quantum events mimic a continuous or analogue reality because there are so many discrete events per second.
 
When you think of quantum, only certain states are possible. Whereas analog is based on continuous functions where infinite states are possible. Relative to random, quantum allows fewer states and therefore better odds. This implies a movement toward order compared to analog if we assume a random universe.

A good analogy is, quantum is a six sided dice while analog is analogous to a round dice. The first has 1 in 6 odds, while the second is 1 in infinite. The first is far more predictable, and defines more order and certainty.
 
Dinosaur said:
The Uncertainty Principle & random processes at the quantum level negate the notion of smooth trajectories & an analogue reality. What our senses perceive is exactly analogous to the audio CD: Discrete quantum events mimic a continuous or analogue reality because there are so many discrete events per second.
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Huh, very interesting, I didn't know this
 
Originally Posted by Dinosaur
The Uncertainty Principle & random processes at the quantum level negate the notion of smooth trajectories & an analogue reality. What our senses perceive is exactly analogous to the audio CD: Discrete quantum events mimic a continuous or analogue reality because there are so many discrete events per second.
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This is not exactly true. Quantum exists at the micro-level but as we scale up toward the macro-level, reality tends to go increasingly toward analog.

For example, if we look at Carbon compounds, there are tens of thousands of carbon based compounds. At the smallest micro-level carbon is based on a handful of quarks. As we scale up from this micro-level toward the macro level of molecules there are tens of thousands plus stereo isomers. If we integrate these carbon compounds into cells, there are now billions of combinations in space and time, etc. If we combined these cells into multi-cellular lifeforms and then integrate these into ecosystems there is even more levels of connection.

The genetic theory for evolution is based on random mutations at the DNA, which precludes specific and predictable quantum life states. Try to argue there is a sense of direction to evolution (into specific quantum states) and see what happens. The left hand and right hand of science are in conflict.

Quantum micro-reality helps make the scale-up into analog macro-scale, possible. As was shown previously, micro-quantum reality is like six sided dice, with only specific preferred states. And analog micro-reality would have infinite states. This is more like a spherical dice that can roll in any direction after a toss. The odds are 1 in infinite for any point on the analog spherical dice. With the quantum dice we have a six sided dice. This is far more predictable.

The round dice will form such a trend only after infinite rolls of the dice. If you had infinite time x infinite time= (timeless), you could find the hidden order in micro-analog reality. This would reduce infinite analog toward quantum.
 
In previous posts I pointed out the following.

It might be clearer if reality is continuous or discrete instead of analog or digital.

The reality observed by our senses & instruments is built on a quantum level reality.

The Uncertainty Principle & random processes at the quantum level negate the notion of continuous (analogue) trajectories.​

When we view a movie or TV show, it seems to display a continuous (analogue) reality. It is actually made of many discrete images.

Would you claim that the movie or TV Show is continuous (analogue)? A person who understands movie/TV technology would surely state that the many discrete (digital) images displayed per second create an illusion of continuity.

Similarly, the reality of our senses & measuring instruments is an illusion of continuity based on a myriad of discrete quantum events occurring every second.

The reality of our senses seems to be continuous (analogue), but is discrete (digital).
 
Dinosaur said:
In previous posts I pointed out the following.

It might be clearer if reality is continuous or discrete instead of analog or digital.

The reality observed by our senses & instruments is built on a quantum level reality.

The Uncertainty Principle & random processes at the quantum level negate the notion of continuous (analogue) trajectories.​
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This makes sense. Discrete models of reality are also explained in this link:

Whereas continuum models are based on the notion of a continuum, a unified extensible whole with one or more distance parameters that can be infinitely subdivided in such a way that any two distinct points are separated by an infinite number of intermediate points, discrete models are distinguished by realistic acknowledgement of the fact that it is impossible to describe or define a change or separation in any way that does not involve a sudden finite jump in some parameter.”
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Our world is made up of things that are quantifiable... it's only discrete math that really makes sense when applied to the real world... so I'd say "digital" but I'm not sure it's the right word...
 
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