Essay Abstract

The essay presents an analytical viewpoint of the relationships among the concepts of reality, analog, continuum, digital and discrete. We then answer the question: Is reality digital or analog? The spaces of ontology and epistemology are considered where the concept of reality is divided into ontological and epistemic realities. The epistemic reality is constructed on the basis of either methodological discreteness or methodological continuum. It is a model representation of the ontological reality in a continuum and represents what there is. The epistemic reality is either digital or analog. The digital and discrete representations are argued to emerge from the formalists and the logistics on the basis of dualism and the classical paradigm of thought with its logic and mathematics. The continuum and analog representations are argued to emerge from the intuitionists on the basis of duality and fuzzy paradigm of thought with its logic and mathematics. The epistemic reality exists as a digital-analog duality or a discrete-continuum duality. The choice of representations depends on whether one assumes exact information structure or defective information structure. Viewed in a set-theoretic structure, digital-discrete representations and the resulting knowledge structure are subsets of the analog-continuum representations and the resulting knowledge structure. The digital-discrete representations are approximations of the analog-continuum representations which are the enveloping of discrete-digital points in the process of knowing the elements in the ontological reality. The answer to the question: Is reality digital or analog? is provided. The ontological reality is analog in the ontological space. The epistemic reality can be either analog or digital or both. In the epistemological space, the analog is related to continuum and inexactness and digital is related to discreteness and exactness. They are methodologically connected to fuzzy and classical paradigms with their laws of thought in knowing the ontological elements respectively.

Author Bio

Kofi Kissi Dompere is a professor of economics at Howard University, His areas of teaching and research are economic theory, mathematical economics, OR, decision theory and international economics. He has published a number of scholarly essays om economic theory, and over ten monographys on foundations on fuzzy sets and systems with Springer Science, economic dynamics and methodology of development economics with Greenwood publishers and foundations of African philosophy with Adonis-Abbey Publishers.His current research is of epistemic foundations of exact and inexact sciences and their relationships to classical and fuzzy paradigms with their logics and mathematics under discrete and continuum representations.

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24 days later

Kofi

An interestingly different take on the subject. I particularly liked your;

"The wrong way to look at the fundamental discreteness is to associate it with ontological activities that are independent of the general human thought system. The right way is to view discreteness as a methodological approach to overcome complexity and use the classical paradigm to understand the ontological continuum through the technique of sequential problem-solving where "x is x" and "10 is 10" which is an appropriate representation for the classical laws of thought.."

Best of luck.

Peter

    6 days later

    Kofi

    Thanks for your kind response on my string. The observer frame question throws up the critical difference that a Doppler frame transition from A to B (from 'ahead' of the frame B motion) viewed from frame A gives just a wavelength reduction, whereas viewed from frame B it reduces the wavelength but also increases the frequency. this gives E = f lambda, to confirm the the law of conservation of energy, as well as c = f lambda, to conform the the SR postulates.

    It now seems a bit of a bunfight to the voting deadline at midnight tonight and mine's just been pushed back down a bit, so if you didn't give it a (nice high of course!) community score please do so before it's too late! Very many thanks for your comments and support anyway.

    Best wishes

    Peter

    • [deleted]

    • Post #4

    Thank you: Peter

    My point of view is simply, the concepts of digital, analog, discretness and continuum must have explications in the epistemological space.To see how this path is a useful approach to relate these concepts to reality,we must distinguish between two realities: the ontological reality that cognitive agents have no control and the epistemic reality that is under the control of cognitive agents. The ontological reality is what knowledge seach is about. The knowledge search takes place in the epistemological space where the tools for excavations are invented by knowledge seekers to develop the epistemic reality and then test it against the ontological reality. Classical mathematics and logic are some of the tools. These tools include methodological discreteness(digital), an methodological continuum (analog). The claim here is that ontological reality is analog or is in continuum and the epistemic reality is either digital or analog or both in our theory develoment, depending on the kind of assumptions that are imposed on the search process. This basic structure is more often taken for granted. The claim of reality in the epestemological space is an epistemic claim. The problem of digital-analog duality is not a monopoly of physics. It is a problem in all knowledge sectors. The gravitation toward digital is its simplicity and readily available classical mathematics and logic; and the fact that it constitutes an approximation to analog which is simply its methodological enveloping for knowledge continuity. Disrete and continuous spaces are methodologial techniques that are tool inventions of the knowledge seekers.This discussion can be extended to knowledge uncertainty, measure of risk and the evolving structure of fuzzy mathematics and its logic to strengthen methodological analog in the epistemological space.

    Any way, thank you again for you kind comment.

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