On Analog in Humanities and Engineering

Preface:

　　Studying in both the College of Humanities and Social Sciences and the College of Engineering and Science, I thought it would be a nice try to write something from both points of view. “In an era defined by technology advancements[1],” engineering has become more and more important, but I think those who can operate in seem-to-be distinctive fields, humanities and engineering in my case, have the responsibility to connect the world since “it’s common to feel disconnected[2],” no?

on May 8, 2024

　　Most of the things you feel, in the way that you may use sense verbs such as sound, taste, see, watch, and so on to express, are analog, analog signals. Take sound for example, the sound you make from clapping your hands to AI-aided music generating, as long as you can hear it, it looks like this:

The red line is continuous, and there are infinite amounts of points on it as if you and another person holding the two ends of a long silky red slip. Then, one of you moves the hands up and down in the air, and the created waves continuously transfer to another like the tetchy touchy mood you unleash while someone is shovelling some intriguing stories about your past out of you. Now, you want to put this feeling into words. In most situations, no matter which form such as an essay, poem, song lyrics, or script you are using, it is almost always impossible to write down every single moment of the continuously fluctuating mind. You only pick the features out like painting an impressionism painting (Figure 2). You do not paint every detail. Even the drawing (in the sense of art) will not do the job although it may be very close to reality.

Note: Is it a sunrise? Yes. Is it the real-world sunrise you will see with your own eyes? Maybe not.

　　Words can be written on paper; paintings can be painted on canvas; today, most things are stored in computers. However, there is no way a computer can calculate an infinite amount of points, so we have to break it down like this:

This is called sampling. Yet our ears, eyes, etc do not accept digital signals. Eventually, the digital signals have to be converted back to analog signals as shown in Figure 4.

However, happy days are yet to come, the more accurately you want it to be converted back to what it was, the finer you have to sample the original signal as it is shown in Figure 5. This is why you are paying so much for an 8k TV. It costs a fortune to pursue high-resolution on every kind of technology.

You now have already put your feelings into words, but does someone who reads the words get exactly what you feel? Generally no. There is always something lost during conversion. In engineering, it can be signals; in literature, it can be translation. Well, it would be more accurate to say “something changed” rather than “something lost.” For example, the so-called having a “warmth,” the distortion, of the sound, the tube sound, from a vacuum tube audio amplifier, can be something gained for someone. (Take a look at Chapter B Section I: Marginal Objects: Antiques of The System of Objects shall you get a brief view of the reason why one may feel this “something gained.”) Sound signals can be analog-ly and/or digitally tuned such as on loudspeakers, musical instruments, etc. Literature can also be interpreted (tuned) into different tastes from one language to another by different translators. These tuning and translating techniques can often be referred to as art. We humans do play with every possible thing in every possible way, don’t we?

　　You may be imagining that we are living in a world full of digital signals, but we are also itching for high-quality continuous analog signals. Everything has to go back to analog otherwise humans will not be able to sense it.

　　Now, let’s expand all of these into a different dimension. Physically, if you expand Figure 1 into 3D, it can be used to describe not a soundtrack but a video. However, what I want to discuss is -- what does “it feels analog” mean? Next time, when you want to know the time, try to recognise the differences between staring at an analog watch face and a digital watch face. Try to count down for five minutes. Try to feel the movement of the second hand and the minute hand. The angular speed, “a scalar measure of the angle rate (the angle per unit time)[8],” may be what you are feeling. You feel the (angular) speed of the hands, you see the angles, and then you sense the time. It is as though you are automatically doing math. It is the continuous movement of the hands that gives you the concept of time while the numbers on the digital watch face jump from one to another without continuous movement. The feeling of time is fractured, shattered into pieces.

　　Something that is (literarily) analog can often mean something natural, old-fashioned, and/or continuous on which you sense the passing of time. This kind of feeling often attracts someone who is a believer in historicalness[9], someone who loves something retro. However, as previously said, everything has to go back to analog (in the physical sense) otherwise humans will not be able to sense it. (Even if you are using Apple Vision Pro, the image and the video you see are composed of light, visible radiation, analog signals.) That is to say, if you have ever come up with an idea of purchasing a retro object, you may be fond of something analog (in the literal sense); if you have come up with an idea of purchasing an object with higher quality such that it has a finer finishing, higher resolution, better sound quality, etc, you may also be fond of something analog (in the physical sense).

Postscript:

Lin Wenyue (林文月)’s Diet Diary (飲膳札記) has a literal taste on top of delicious food; Gertrude Stien tried to put cubism (paintings) into words[10]; J. S. Bach imitated, overlapped motifs in short compositions, Inventions and Sinfonias, for those truly want to learn “to achieve a cantabile style of playing, and thereby to acquire a strong foretaste of composition.[11]” This essay is meant to be written in a way that there is a literal taste on top of the engineering topics in the form of a fugue in which the same motifs are imitated between the tone of humanities and engineering in a style of prose that can be read by the masses. I have no idea whether this works or not or if anyone has tried it. I just hope you have enjoyed the reading!

[1] 2024逢甲大學外文系刊徵稿啟事

[2] 2024逢甲大學外文系刊徵稿啟事

[3] https://www.elprocus.com/differences-between-analog-signal-and-digital-signal/

[4] https://www.wikiart.org/en/claude-monet/impression-sunrise

[5] https://wirelesspi.com/a-digital-signal/

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog-to-digital_converter

[7] https://www.slideserve.com/faith/4-adc

[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angular_frequency

[9] Chapter B. The Non-Functional System, or Subjective Discourse, The System of Objects

[10] https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gertrude-Stein

[11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inventions_and_Sinfonias