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Article 6315 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Digital Better?
Keywords: digital analog quantum
Message-ID: <1992Jun18.210719.3611@mp.cs.niu.edu>
Date: 18 Jun 92 21:07:19 GMT
References: <1992Jun17.182829.18441@mp.cs.niu.edu> <1992Jun18.191429.2447@cs.ucf.edu>
Organization: Northern Illinois University
Lines: 38

In article <1992Jun18.191429.2447@cs.ucf.edu> clarke@acme.ucf.edu (Thomas Clarke) writes:
>In article <1992Jun17.182829.18441@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil  
>Rickert) writes:
>> 
>> 	anything analog can do,
>> 	  digital can do better.
>> 	digital can do anything
>> 	  better than that.
>> 
>
>This is an unproven belief.

  Since it apparently was not obvious, let me make it clear that this was
a deliberate oversimplification.

  Sometimes an analog method happens to be available which is very
simple.  To the extent that simplicity is a benefit, the analog
approach may be better.

  If you were wanting to compare the phase relation of two light beams,
analog methods using interference work quite nicely.  Switching speeds are
not fast enough to do this by first digitizing the information in the
two beams and then comparing.

   However, when the extreme circumstances are not present, digital
offers many benefits.  Every processing step potentially introduces
noise and other forms of signal degradation.  By digitizing, you
essentially limit this signal degradation to the A to D conversion at
the start, and the D to A conversion at the end.  In between you can
use very high precision for the digital processing.

>                                                Thus
>a system employing A/D conversion would not enjoy certain
>quantum subtleties arising from intereference.

   If it turns out that quantum effects have some esoteric properies
which create intelligence, this might be significant.  However I
remain highly skeptical.


