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The Best of Both Worlds:
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Dickau, Jonathan J. |
| Copyright Year | 2011 |
| Abstract | When considering whether reality is fundamentally analog or digital, I can think of convincing arguments for each case, but feel that both answers are limiting, and that the fundamental nature of reality is far more interesting. I am firmly convinced reality is neither exclusively discrete nor solely continuous – as it must display both faces for either aspect to be manifested. The nature of reality is both analog and digital, rather than exclusively one or the other. Observable phenomena satisfy the constraints of both continuous and discrete natures at once. The attributes we observe appear discrete or continuous largely as a matter of choice. What information we choose to observe or preserve, and how we take in or process information, will affect what we see. Often the choice is automatic, as a single sub-atomic particle or atom acting as a localized observer can induce the appearance of classical variables and discrete entities, even though the global wavefunction remains coherent during local interactions. Nature is fundamentally unified however, regardless of all appearances, though any attempt to probe it finds discrete quanta of energy, information, and form. This paper proposes that reality is both analog and digital because nature finds the most effective or efficient means available to encode energy and information as observable form. |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Dickau_JDickau__The_Best_of.pdf |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
