Analog to Digital: Human to Machine

The slow move from human to machine shows up in such a variety of ways in our modern lives. It is interesting how it has snuck up on us. The beginnings of this movement seemed innocent enough. I doubt if anyone actually recognized them as being sinister or even speculated something was happening that at some point would be considered a bad move. Maybe it is just human nature to move away from being a human, but I tend to doubt that. Something is probably behind it.

Let me start down this path with some simple examples.

When was the first time we even heard the word “digital”? I think I will start there because the idea of ticking things off in a digital rather than analog manner is really at the crux of all of this (but of course it isn’t the only transhuman element currently gnawing away at us). What exactly is digital when compared to analog? One way to describe it is that analog is smooth, as the natural world appears to be, and time has always been experienced as an analog movement. That is a very simplistic definition, but it will suffice in this context.

Using a clock as an example, the sweeping second hand moves through the seconds smoothly. Maybe you’ve seen or have had clocks where the second hand moves in jerky movements, counting down the seconds one by one. Even though that sort of analog second hand only moves every second, technically it is still moving smoothly from one second mark to the next, albeit very quickly (the hand doesn’t disappear between second marks).

But let’s stick with the analog smooth movement just to make a point. Remember geometry class in 8th grade? I remember being taught that there were an infinite number of points between any two points on a line. Same thing with an analog clock—there is an infinite number of “times” between those “second” markers. You could say that about a digital clock too, but we don’t experience those infinite fractions of a second between markers. They are not seen or felt when a digital clock ticks down the seconds. A sweeping second hand in the analog clock passes through all those moments, and we see it.

Am I being too obtuse here? Stay with me.

Strangely, I am reminded of cursive handwriting vs. printing when thinking of analog vs. digital clocks. Cursive is analog, and printing is digital. Think about it. Interesting how neither analog clock reading nor cursive handwriting is still taught in school these days. Kids growing up in these modern times can’t read an analog clock, nor write cursive. A shame. More of a shame than we realize.

Where else am I going with this?

How about customer service on the phone?—“Press 1 if you speak English, 2 if you know who you wish to speak with, 3 for general inquiries” or any other digital designation. No room for nuance. No human to converse in typical human-analog ways. Your choice has to fit within 10 categories. What if what you want isn’t a choice? You are out of luck I suppose. This is a digital concept, a digital solution to what used to be an analog event: speaking to a human and deciding with them where your call should be forwarded or why you are calling.

We are seeing this now even with medical calls to your doctor. In Canada medical care is going all digital, all on zoom or on the phone or email or filling out questionnaires. Describing what is bothering you physically must fit within the framework of a general list of questions that has little room for detail, subtlety or nuance. This is currently really a trend and not yet fully a reality. You can still talk to your doctor with all your crazy, subjective, explanations of what is troubling you. But it is still pretty clear the medical system is trying very hard to make life, and all the complexity of it, digitized, thus lacking the very human element of analog experience. Next time you go to the hospital for a routine test, notice how the entire experience is an engagement with machines, computers, closed ended questions, and nowadays, with faceless people.

Dehumanization.

I use the medical example as only one occurrence of this “digital way of doing things,” there are of course many more. All of this is just another way to move into a transhuman existence. So many dystopian sci-fi films have little vignettes relating to what I am writing about here—inhuman computer voices asking questions with no compassion, no engagement in human conversation, closed ended questions which seldom cover any nuance or unique detail.

How many other examples are out there that illustrate this trend from analog to digital? And why does it matter? We’ll get to that.

Probably the most glaring “change” in our every day lives other than clocks, all manner of reading numbers, and cursive vs. printing, include music, photography, and art. Of course computers have taken over, and they are undoubtedly all digital in nature being entirely based on binary computer code.

The massive change from analog to digital in music is obvious—photography may not be as obvious other than the loss of printing photos on photographic paper (an analog process unlike mass printing). The digital take over of graphic art (commercial “art” has long been pixelated—even in the four colour process invented long ago—due to its primary conveyance to the public as print material) is just coming into being with AI Art, although the beginnings of this technological breakthrough seems to be limited to commercial usage.

Analog music conveyance is all but lost, although there has been a recent resurgence of vinyl records, which is not truly analog, although closer than digital sampling such as CDs and streaming. True analog music is live, where the air is set into motion by the actual vibrations of an instrument or voice. I could write a book on this topic so I will stop here. I think you get the picture (no pun intended).

One could argue that everything, at is smallest point, is digital, meaning that if you reduce anything small enough, it reduces down to “yes and no”, plus or minus electrical charge, or some other digital binary “truth.” But this simply is not true. A materialist will argue it is, but even a quantum physicist might rub the chin a bit on that one.

The life force is analog. The energy force at the quantum level, which cannot be seen and takes up no space, is analog. All “things” reduce to an analog reality—even atomic particles. But analog reality is not only “tiny” (materialist science loves to reduce any system down to its smallest parts and claim nothing is greater than the sum of its parts) the analog “essence” of the Universe is as large as space itself. It is the true substance of reality—unseen and immeasurable. It is consciousness—consciousness of the heart.

Human beings used to live in the midst of this reality. The world around them was alive, vibrant, and “felt”—everything was alive, everything had meaning. Love is analog, the purpose of life is analog, it is all around us and through us, it cannot be reduced down to small particles or “things”—it cannot be digitized for convenience, or stripped of its nuance and mystery.

So what does that have to do with clocks?

Clocks are an example of the movement away from analog. So are all the other things I mentioned. Most of these things are now very obvious, and I believe they annoy us because they are unnatural. Wouldn’t most of you rather discuss your medical issues with a human being (that used to be what doctors were) in a setting (doctor’s exam room) that has a human “feel” to it and not so sterile and “digital”? (I am illustrating only one example.)

Do most of you older folks miss cursive handwriting? What have we lost, with it now disappearing? Some (me) would say “soul”—some would say “love.” How is that? I don’t think I have to explain it.

I believe as we move further and further away from being aware, and nurturing, the analog reality of life and the universe, we depart more and more from our true human-ness. Digital life is fragmented, it is life being chopped up into tiny discernible bits. Analog is infinite: infinite choices, and infinite paths.

At first this movement away from the true essence of life will just feel queasy and uncertain, then depression sets in, then anxiety, then who knows—meaning and purpose of living starts to disappear. Needless to say we have been headed in this direction for quite some time. I think the movement toward a fully digitized reality is more a symptom than a cause—although one has to wonder if there is some evil intention behind some of this.

This is part of transhumanism. It is a slow departure from what, in our environment and experience, actually brings life to us. A digital world and experience is inhuman. It may be good for machines, but it is not good for the soul.