some thoughts on digitization

What happens when we digitize something? Whether audio, imagery, or anything else, the process always involves taking samples and then essentially abstracting from the samples into something a computer can comprehend-- data. The more samples per amount of information coming into the digitizer, the higher resolution will be. The more specific the digitizer is when choosing a value for any given sample, the higher the “bit depth” will be. If the resolution and bit depth are high enough, this abstract data can be use to create something apparently a lot like the original. For example, a digital scanner takes a number of color and brightness samples from an image and assigns values for these samples. We can imagine a bunch of dots and for each dot the scanner assigns a color off of a color swatch. The more dots, the higher the resolution, the more colors on the swatch, the greater the bit depth. But while we may keep increasing the fidelity of our digitizer, it will never store all the richness of the original. This is because it is not possible to provide a value data to the basic “atom” or structural basis for the object. What would this value be in terms of? On the other hand if there is no basic atom, then the resolution and bit depth would have to be infinite. Ok, so what? Well I think language works in largely the same way as a digital technology. We have an experience and we process it in a number of ways, one of them is linguistically. Language consists of a number of words which are the various color swatches. The more words we use to describe a given experiential “space,” the greater the resolution. The more words at our disposal and the better our word choices are, the higher the bit depth of our expressions are. Language suffers from the same basic fallibility as a music CD. It can only capture so much of an experience. We can use it to the max with skill and practice, we can push its boundaries with poetry, but it will never square up exactly with what it describes. It has been said that all language is metaphor, and I am liable to agree. Of course language is more than a simple digitizer. It is much richer, and capable of fantasy and obfuscation. Perhaps it is better likened to a digital scanner and Photoshop. No, not enough, language is self defined and unto itself (“la langue”). Words are defined in terms of other words in some kind of circular way. Data is in terms of more basic data. There is much here to puzzle over, but I think the analogy being drawn here has something to say. All this talk of digital makes it hard not to mention the analog. But I find that much harder to comprehend. I think perhaps all language is digital, and analog communication is something else… translatable, storable, but somehow not comprehendible in a logical sense without conversion to one digital-linguistic form or another. I’d like to find a book on this topic.