The world is very much digitalized, a system which may sound superior, but is it really better than traditional analogue technologies?
Our eyes for example are analogue. The screen in front of you is composed of pixels, therefore regarded as digital. Each dots on the screen has a color, represented by strings of data, 8 bit, 16 bit, 32 bit… immense amounts of data flow through the wires to form an image on screen, but is it really better? rewrite^
Detail
Our eyes seem to possess an immense level of detail. It can detect the pixels on screen and visualize in a much superior quality. Our vision seems to be unmatched by any amount of pixels, but is this all an illusion? Is there a limit to the resolution one can observe? Is there a way to create a display that is of such high resolution the eye will perceive it as real?
To better understand this question, an analogy must be used; in this case, comparing film to digital image. Once film is developed, it seems to not have any pixels, yet when you print out a digital image, the dots are quite visible.
It must be understood how the eye sees. At the back of the eye, there are rod and cone cells. The concentration of these cells can determine the "resolution" at which are eyes see. Red cells dectect light and cone cells detect color when an image is "projected" on to them. This is most analougous to the way electrons glow on a Cathode Ray Tube display, as there is no way to know exactly onto which cell
Vector
Fonts, clipart, Cad drawings; they are all represented with a vector system, one that no matter how stretched, maintains its full look. This is because the image is simple and made of a number of defined points for which a line is rendered in between and certain regions filled with a color. It is just like a square. The 4 points are equidistant to eachother, so when the whole image is stretched, the picture is just scaled up by X amount, nothing becomes pixilated or overstretched.
Fundamental Differences
It seems that human beings accumulate vast memories throughout ones life. All is accumulated accordingly and can be recalled in great accuracy at any given moment. It is all stored in our fairly compact brains. The computer equivalent of such amounts of still and moving memories comprises an mind boggling amount of data. If the only functions are 1 and 0. To record high resolution motion pictures sound, images… and other media equivalent to that accumulated in an average brain would be mind bogging. Trillions of terabytes to match, but digital, or computer technology has one undeniable advantage. It is much more precise, matching the exact hue of each pixel to a level humans cannot render. Even recalling a story, humans have trouble duplicating each time, so humans can amass much more with ease, media which to us may seem simple, but digital technologies surpass in terms of accuracy and exactness.
Linking the brain and the computer