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From: harnad@mind.UUCP (Stevan Harnad)
Newsgroups: net.ai,sci.electronics,net.cog-eng
Subject: The Analog/Digital Distinction: Soliciting Definitions
Message-ID: <7@mind.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 21-Oct-86 09:33:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: mind.7
Posted: Tue Oct 21 09:33:35 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 22-Oct-86 04:28:39 EDT
Organization: Cognitive Science, Princeton University
Lines: 22
Keywords: analog, digital, continuous, discrete, symbolic, nonsymbolic, numeric, representation, icon, image, visual, verbal
Xref: watmath net.ai:3800 sci.electronics:2 net.cog-eng:785

I'd like to test whether there is a coherent formulation of the
analog/digital distinction out there. I suspect that the results will
be surprising.

Engineers and computer scientists seem to feel that they have a
suitable working definition of the distinction, whereas philosophers
have argued that the distinction may not be tenable at all.
Cognitive scientists are especially interested because they are
concerned with analog vs. nonanalog representations. And
neuroscientists are interested in analog and nonanalog processes in
the nervous system.

I have some ideas, but I'll save them until I sample some of what the
Net nets. The ground-rules are these: Try to propose a clear and
objective definition of the analog/digital distinction that is not
arbitrary, relative, a matter of degree, or loses in the limit the
intuitive distinction it was intended to capture.

One prima facie non-starter: "continuous" vs. "discrete" physical
processes.

Stevan Harnad (princeton!mind!harnad)