Theory of Everything

bogosort

Joined Sep 24, 2011
696
Ok, 2090 then? I think when Ken Jennings won against "Watson" in Jeopardy, it was really just you in the back, and instead of showing the time-displacement tech you came here in, they showed pictures of a generic datacenter room. I may just give you that test at some point! o_O
LOL, I like the cut of you jib. :)
 

Thread Starter

Jennifer Solomon

Joined Mar 20, 2017
112
Counting bits and counting sheep. The string "0101" has precisely four bits of information. If we count bits in the usual way, that particular string represents the number 5: \[ 0 \times 2^3 + 1 \times 2^2 + 0 \times 2^1 + 1 \times 2^0 = 5 \] But we can count the bits differently: \[ 0 \times 2^{-1} + 1 \times 2^{-2} + 0 \times 2^{-3} + 1 \times 2^{-4} = 0.25 \] The same sequence of bits can represent the number 0.25, or indeed something entirely different. Anything that has at most four bits of information can be represented by that string.
Right, but in this case, you can simply use more bits to instruct the machine to manipulate those strings in the alternate manner, correct? Bits still instructing bits to add bits in a given way to yield more bits. Son of a bit.

Nope. We naturally associate counting (and logic states) with countable numbers, i.e., 0, 1, 2, 3, ... But most numbers are not countable. What logic state corresponds to \( \pi \)? How do you count \( \sqrt{2} \) sheep? Indeed, the vast majority of numbers aren't even computable in principle, whereas bits are always countable (and hence computable). So, how can they be the same if the size of one set (numbers) absolutely dwarfs the size of the other set (bits)?
Pi? No different from any other irrational decimal number, no? Australian researchers recently found the sixty-trillionth binary digit of Pi-squared at a quadrillion calculations per second using a quantum computer and its superpositional qubits. Superposition of bits is still logic states, just way more and way faster. In the end, it was computed from the logic states just the same.

\( \sqrt{2} \) can be represented by bits just the same and its result is another string of bits. You can't count \( \sqrt{2} \) sheep, because \( \sqrt{2} \) is an irrational number, and so would have to be the sheep you're counting! So the question is just as irrational. :)

By their nature, bits are discrete, as are numbers, and the set of each of them is not at issue with their intersection of definition in my mind. The number 542 is 100% equal, every day, to 01000011110 which IS a number unto itself without referencing it back to 542, because 0's and 1's are base 2 and ALSO logic states. If we had 2 fingers, we'd learn to count with those logic states ("TRUE I have a finger, FALSE I have a finger" alternating). If there wasn't an implicit overlap, we couldn't compute using them!

I think I see what you mean, and I agree to a point. This is one of those instances where the technical stuff is important. Numbers, as complicated as they are, do not include any notion of adding, subtracting, etc. Numbers have properties, that's it. If we want to perform operations on numbers -- adding, subtracting, etc. -- then we have to bolt on extra, even more complicated models. This is where we get into algebraic structures, like groups, rings, fields, etc. The structure of the numbers by themselves does not permit operations, but by imposing richer structure, such as a ring structure, then we can include things like addition and multiplication. But a ring isn't a number, and the "same" number behaves very differently in different algebraic structures. In boolean rings, 1 + 1 = 0 is a true statement.
I'd argue those structures aren't really numbers then, but another mystery component that we're exploring here. As soon as you start talking "structure", we're now discussing "form" and form vs. bit I think is the principal question at present.

I say all of this to convey the idea that counting, adding, numbers, bits -- they're all very different things, each their own deep discipline. Admittedly, our everyday language makes it all the more confusing because we informally mix and match the various concepts. But if we look carefully, as we should in such endeavors, we see far more distinction than sameness.
Meh — I hear what you're saying, but what I say above registers just as true to me. So I'm just not convinced that just because we "qualify" things with these fancy terms, in the end numbers are numbers. We add them. If we say 1 we say quantity 1 and also TRUE 1 is THERE and if we say quantity 0, we are saying TRUE, 0 is NOT THERE.

Issue is, again, we're in "mind-realm" — this stuff overlaps into the mysterious undefined regions that we are working on getting toward. We can't define this stuff in a model without defining the other stuff first.

Perhaps we'll circle back to this from another angle later?
 
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Thread Starter

Jennifer Solomon

Joined Mar 20, 2017
112
This is precisely like the "0101" example. How we should interpret the symbols -- the semantics -- is arbitrary, informationally-speaking. Whether "0101" means 5, 0.25, or "Monday" it costs the same (informationally-speaking) to transmit, process, and store the message.

It's crucial that we recognize that the information is completely independent of the semantics given to it, whether by man or machine.
Ok, arbitrary is fine, but the "how" of the assignment of the symbol is a separate question from the fact that we do. Because clusters of "agreed upon forms" is what one might deem as human language, and there'd be no reasoning between us if we didn't have a common symbology to discuss bits, lights and any dog related to them in space and time.

So with that in mind, to circle back to that question again, would you agree:

Forms are required to make sense of bits, correct? Otherwise bits are context-less and therefore meaningless to other bits?
 

sparky 1

Joined Nov 3, 2018
1,218
Like a crystal radio the audio is separated by a diode. We can also filter a frequency with some success.
How the human ear works can have electrical analogies. First having a musical ear can distinguish
a note very accurately, for me I am not musically gifted but I really admire the creative ones.
A car painter always has an eye for all the mistakes but the others rarely can see them.

The wave concept is much better explained by teachers but it roughly says..When a wave leaves a resonator in the air it pre-forms into a D shape.
or you can say the violinist accidentally produced the wrong standing wave that traveled at the speed of sound. For that brief moment the composite of sound waves have been recorded.

The electronics teacher then does a clickity-click on the black board and after a few classic math examples the student begins to visualize the concept.
The subset domain of physics are outlined by the textbook he uses it satisfies an academic requirement. A university level instructor sometimes gives demonstrations with sound and is often asked about such things.

What can be learned from electronics is how the microphone senses sound and how the circuit processes and records the sound.
Because we can play back the recording we can edit and insert a violin sound byte because of the editing equipment.
The result might not sound exactly correct however there is some success.
In a
 
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Thread Starter

Jennifer Solomon

Joined Mar 20, 2017
112
Like a crystal radio the audio is separated by a diode. We can also filter a frequency with some success.
How the human ear works can have electrical analogies. First having a musical ear can distinguish
a note very accurately, for me I am not musically gifted but I really admire the creative ones.
A car painter always has an eye for all the mistakes but the others rarely can see them.

The wave concept is much better explained by teachers but it roughly says..When a wave leaves a resonator in the air it pre-forms into a D shape.
or you can say the violinist accidentally produced the wrong standing wave that traveled at the speed of sound. For that brief moment the composite of sound waves have been recorded.

The electronics teacher then does a clickity-click on the black board and after a few classic math examples the student begins to visualize the concept.
The subset domain of physics are outlined by the textbook he uses it satisfies an academic requirement. A university level instructor sometimes gives demonstrations with sound and is often asked about such things.

What can be learned from electronics is how the microphone senses sound and how the circuit processes and records the sound.
Because we can play back the recording we can edit and insert a violin sound byte because of the editing equipment.
The result might not sound exactly correct however there is some success.
In a
Thanks, but feel free to read the last several pages to see the trajectory of discourse here. Respectfully, your post should have its own thread.
 

bogosort

Joined Sep 24, 2011
696
Pi? No different from any other irrational decimal number, no? Australian researchers recently found the sixty-trillionth binary digit of Pi-squared at a quadrillion calculations per second using a quantum computer and its superpositional qubits. Superposition of bits is still logic states, just way more and way faster. In the end, it was computed from the logic states just the same.

\( \sqrt{2} \) can be represented by bits just the same and its result is another string of bits. You can't count \( \sqrt{2} \) sheep, because \( \sqrt{2} \) is an irrational number, and so would have to be the sheep you're counting! So the question is just as irrational. :)
My point is that the concept of numbers encompasses far more than the simple one-to-one correspondence of counting. Only the so-called counting numbers, aka the naturals \( {0, 1, 2, 3, ... } \in \mathbb{N} \), could apply to your "bits are numbers" idea. Note that, even just among the real numbers, \( \mathbb{N} \) has zero measure, meaning, if you put all of \( \mathbb{N} \) and \( \mathbb{R} \) in a bag and picked a number randomly, the probability that you'd pick a counting number is zero! This despite the fact that \( \mathbb{N} \subset \mathbb{R} \), i.e., your bag has two copies of each counting number. But two times zero is still zero. :)

So, if the vast majority of numbers are not counting numbers (and thus not compatible with bits), how can it be meaningful to say that "bits are numbers" or, equivalently, "numbers are bits"? The only reasonable claim is "bits are natural numbers". But even this is a category error. As sets of elements, it is certainly true that bits are isomorphic to \( \mathbb{N} \) (we can put them in a one-to-one correspondence). But we're not talking about sets, we're talking (I think?) about the ontology of information as a physical, existing thing. Under our common-sense background model, I take numbers to be purely conceptual (non-physical) and bits to be discrete "chunks" of information, which is a physical quantity.

A suitable analogy might be this: 4 bits of information is like saying 4 meters of length or 4 kilograms of mass. The underlying "thing" is a physical quantity (information, length, mass) that we arbitrarily express in some unit (bit, meter, kilogram), which sets the scale of the magnitude (4). A bit is no more a number than a meter or kilogram is.

The number 542 is 100% equal, every day, to 01000011110 which IS a number unto itself without referencing it back to 542, because 0's and 1's are base 2 and ALSO logic states.
It is crucial that we distinguish between numbers and their representations. The representation, always an arbitrary choice, is not the number. What number is represented by 111? It could be the same number that is represented by "one-hundred and eleven", or it could be the same number that is represented by "seven", or it could be something else entirely. The representation is arbitrary and not fixed until we apply semantics to the symbols. As a binary string, 111 might mean "seven" (unsigned binary) or it might mean "negative one" (two's-complement binary). There is no sense in which a string of symbols, a physical representation, is equivalent to a number, which is a purely conceptual thing.

Meh — I hear what you're saying, but what I say above registers just as true to me. So I'm just not convinced that just because we "qualify" things with these fancy terms, in the end numbers are numbers. We add them. If we say 1 we say quantity 1 and also TRUE 1 is THERE and if we say quantity 0, we are saying TRUE, 0 is NOT THERE.
Again, that is only applicable for counting numbers, and even there it is incomplete. No one says "I have quantity 1", they say "I have 1 egg" or "I have 1 leg" or "I have 1 bit of information". The quantity "1" is distinct from the thing it purports to count.

Perhaps we'll circle back to this from another angle later?
Normally I'd agree, but this seems so fundamental that I think we should resolve it to both our satisfaction.
 

bogosort

Joined Sep 24, 2011
696
Ok, arbitrary is fine, but the "how" of the assignment of the symbol is a separate question from the fact that we do. Because clusters of "agreed upon forms" is what one might deem as human language, and there'd be no reasoning between us if we didn't have a common symbology to discuss bits, lights and any dog related to them in space and time.

So with that in mind, to circle back to that question again, would you agree:

Forms are required to make sense of bits, correct? Otherwise bits are context-less and therefore meaningless to other bits?
Two wholly different notions, information and meaning. Information is a physical thing -- like energy or chicken soup -- that can be passed around, processed, and stored. Meaning is a much more complicated concept. My hunch is that it's an emergent phenomenon, possibly unique to organisms with consciousness. What seems clear is that information does not depend on meaning.

When the orchestra plays, the concert hall is filled with information about their performance. This information is available to any processor (audience member, recording device, etc.) in the hall, and each processor will get essentially the same information, with variance coming only from differences in physical location. This all happens regardless of the meaning, if any, a particular processor might derive from the information.

I think we're safe to say that a recording device does not get any meaning from the performance it records.
 

Thread Starter

Jennifer Solomon

Joined Mar 20, 2017
112
I follow your contention, and it helps highlight this conceptual crossroads in my mind.:)

Your assumption here is that everything is physical.

If you want to make a bit a physical thing, and then say a number is an abstraction used to count bits, how do you propose the physical brain is making a distinction?

If everything exists as a physical thing, then logically, is not a number defined as a bit of undefined abstraction space (from your definition, "mind") from the everything is physical starting presumption? Why the differentiation?
 
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bogosort

Joined Sep 24, 2011
696
I follow your contention, and it helps highlight this conceptual crossroads in my mind.:)

Your assumption here is that everything is physical.

If you want to make a bit a physical thing, and then say a number is an abstract thing used to count bits, how do you propose the physical brain is making a distinction?

If everything exists as a physical thing, then logically, is not a number defined as a bit of undefined abstraction space (from your definition, "mind") from the everything is physical starting presumption? Why the differentiation?
It's a curious bug in the common-sense model that pretty much everything is physical except for numbers. If true, then how does the physical brain "get at" non-physical numbers? One is either forced to bolt on huge swaths of weird theory to account for the brain-number interface, or accept the simplest conclusion, prima facie. Namely, mathematical objects are physical objects.

This isn't an unheard-of conclusion. Many, if not most, professional mathematicians believe that math is discovered, not invented, and so exists "out there" in the physical realm. It's weird to imagine where the monster group M could be, but one prominent physicist (Tegmark) believes that the universe itself is a mathematical object.

Personally, I'm open to the possibility that math has a physical existence. Presumably, in such a worldview, mathematical objects -- including numbers -- could carry information, and are thus game to be characterized in terms of bits. Of course, this doesn't change the fact that bits and natural numbers are different types of beasts in the zoo.

How important is the physicality of numbers to this discussion? Can we agree that, regardless of the physicality of numbers, bits are not numbers?
 

Thread Starter

Jennifer Solomon

Joined Mar 20, 2017
112
Linguistic clarification question for you:

In the same way the universe comprises invisible things doing invisible things, are you objectively open to the possibility that there are invisible things doing invisible things within the human being?

This invisible thing could be "considered" physical in the same way a field or force could be considered invisible, and yet physical. It's just simply not pin-pointable in the grey matter.

In particular, could there be information processing and meaning happening in a non-visible portion of the being?

For example, I could make the argument that generally "depth of meaning" is not found in the physical location of the brain. It is found in the center of the being near the physical heart and stomach. People readily identify this area empirically as an "area of knowing" and emotional experience associated with it, despite the chemicals involved with such things located between the ears.

Is it "possible" there is information processing happening there?
 
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bogosort

Joined Sep 24, 2011
696
Linguistic clarification question for you:

In the same way the universe comprises invisible things doing invisible things, are you objectively open to the possibility that there are invisible things doing invisible things within the human being?

This invisible thing could be "considered" physical in the same way a field or force could be considered invisible, and yet physical. It's just simply not pin-pointable in the grey matter.
I don't understand what you mean by "the universe comprises invisible things doing invisible things". If by invisible you mean "cannot be measured", then I disagree with the premise.
 

Thread Starter

Jennifer Solomon

Joined Mar 20, 2017
112
I don't understand what you mean by "the universe comprises invisible things doing invisible things". If by invisible you mean "cannot be measured", then I disagree with the premise.
Ok, agreed — but do you agree that the ability to measure it might not be within the technological purview of the brain?
 

Thread Starter

Jennifer Solomon

Joined Mar 20, 2017
112
Personally, I'm open to the possibility that math has a physical existence. Presumably, in such a worldview, mathematical objects -- including numbers -- could carry information, and are thus game to be characterized in terms of bits. Of course, this doesn't change the fact that bits and natural numbers are different types of beasts in the zoo.

How important is the physicality of numbers to this discussion? Can we agree that, regardless of the physicality of numbers, bits are not numbers?
I believe this is a crux to this discussion, so I think we need to plumb it a "bit" further.

Say this again for the people in the back:

Personally, I'm open to the possibility that math has a physical existence. Presumably, in such a worldview, mathematical objects -- including numbers -- could carry information, and are thus game to be characterized in terms of bits. Of course, this doesn't change the fact that bits and natural numbers are different types of beasts in the zoo.
So it makes no sense that numbers are something other than bits when we are strictly dealing with the observed neurons. As you agreed, we're dealing with neurons, and neurons are storage cells. Neurons carry "something", that something is a bit. There ain't any numbers anywhere to be found in my book in the grey coils. ;) I will not under-rug sweep this and say "Welllll... it's mysterious." I feel it's an easy conceptual magic-wand to me that is an impasse to delving further.

That said, syllogistic breakdown attempt #2:

1) Physical media is limited to bits of n size for both storage and processing.

2) Human brain is a physical medium.

3) Human brain stores and processes bits.

If you don't want to consider the brain other than physical media, it's using bits to work with bits; and its unparalleled efficiency compared to any other physical system is immaterial to this fact.

Yes?

(Btw, this is why I'm insistent on an equality between them as a natural inference due to our initial definition)
 
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bogosort

Joined Sep 24, 2011
696
Ok, agreed — but do you agree that the ability to measure it might not be within the technological purview of the brain?
As in, there exists phenomena that humans are physically incapable of measuring (ever)? I don't think I could agree to that without a strong argument laying out how. Got one up your sleeve?
 

Thread Starter

Jennifer Solomon

Joined Mar 20, 2017
112
As in, there exists phenomena that humans are physically incapable of measuring (ever)? I don't think I could agree to that without a strong argument laying out how. Got one up your sleeve?
Yes, I think it's a kind of "asymptotic proof" that is emergent once we get closer to defining the mysterious Abstractville. This would be called metaphysical if it exists, and the physical theoretically would not be able to measure it, particularly if the physical is potentially a derivative of it (Forgive me father, for I have sinned against dead set dogma of any origin). It has something to do with the book, "Dogs in the Light" on holopaperback in the year 2029. It also has to do with Abstractville's mystery tokens "know," "believe," "real," "meaning," "reason," "intention", and others (including "life" itself), that we are partially endeavoring to objectively triangulate into a lexical framework that science will recognize as being scientifically deduced. And no, you are not going anywhere! Haha. JK:)
 
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Thread Starter

Jennifer Solomon

Joined Mar 20, 2017
112
A little treatise here, hashed out — will need some of your AI on the terms, but the rough concept I think you can pull some meat out of:

Where is "infinity" reckoned, or where does the concept even arise, in the finite physical medium? .

The very fact that your brain is a physical medium that only works with discrete bits, and—from your baseline measurable-only-physicality-assumption—it's using bits to discuss numbers, means that numbers are actually some subset of bits! But that's irrational, and more evidence to where I'm going here....

Bits can be added, subtracted, multiplied, and divided, like things in space. Their purpose is to quantify, equate, evaluate, compare. And "legit" numbers—not theoretical abstractions—are entirely synonymous.

Boolean algebra is about fundamentally taking strings of "1's" and "0"s (numbers or logic states) and chiefly using the XOR operator to process them by treating numbers as real things interacting with transistor gates and delivering different strings as results, given set gate-based filtration rules. The sequentiality of the number line is a construct, in a sense, until it is married to this "abstract concept" called "thing with size". 280, 91 or 5 does not have a differentiation until it is married with "bananas" or "mass."

If I have "something" OR "nothing" I have something. (OR is more frequently XOR in common language, but using basic Boolean rigidity, I'm not talking mutually exclusive here, I'm talking straight-up Boolean OR).

This is equating the number with the bit right there.

I have something OR nothing— or, "It's true I have something" or "false I have something (also "true" I have nothing)." The physical brain delivers like physical computer — "I have a voltage" (1) or "I don't have a voltage" (0).

The most fundamental thing the mind can reckon with is also the most fundamental thing it can do arithmetic on.

If "1" again is equated to a "universe of thinkable thoughts" it could be seen as representing a "form" which we're trying to define, and I think it's right here where the line between physical brain and "non-measurable thought word abstraction" must be logically drawn.

The brain has a "voltage" to represent the mind's "thought form" that it defines using "points with no dimension" that when strung together can create lines, circles, and polygonal forms.

Each of these forms are composed of points with no dimension, so then what "size are they?" Well, they can be infinitely stretched theoretically and infinitely squished.

So I say they possess 2 states — infinitely large, or infinitely small, which when bounded for reference = 1 or 0. Or, "exists" or "doesn't exist" (also, "potential to exist").

So thought forms come in and out of the mind having properties of infinitude and also countability. There is an intersection here between infinity, numbers, and observable form that is one of the things I'm trying to harden here.

But it means bracketing the brain's definition into the solid-state digital bit computer that it is, and addressing the abstract area as "something else" (personally I intuit some kind of metaphysical "membrane" that is co-located with the brain and can be triangulated into definition using carefully crafted sequences of logic).

The discrete physical brain with discrete number of neurons, even with superpositioned bits is simply incompatible with a supra-bit, or supra-numeric phenomenon like infinity. Seriously, if your axiomatic supposition early on is the "physical medium is a bit processor," where logically does "infinity" even come from as a representational construct? No where in the brain.

In my estimation numbers are legitimately limited to real, imaginary, rational, irrational, natural, integer, and complex — are all countable and arithmetically operable, and everything we do with computers —read: everything that matters in reality—is in that set.

Ontologically, I would therefore argue that anything that can't be counted, added, subtracted, multiplied, divided, or comparatively evaluated is not actually a number/bit. It is some kind of structural, theoretical numeric abstraction that is something beyond this simple reality-based concept. Arithmetic is arithmetic, numbers are numbers. Arithmetic is the language of legitimate numbers.

If we envision a form such as a circle in the mind composed of infinite point circumference and infinite point area, but then bound that infinity in some way, we can call it "infinity 5" or "infinity 29,300" — different circles with different number labels. They have no size difference in the mind, though we ascribe them different numbers because size is derived from, as I believe you said earlier, suffixing another element onto it (which then yields the sense of discrete comparable boundaries that is comparable with other forms).

The true value of any real number above 1 (AKA "TRUE" or "PRESENCE OF THING") is a symbology shortcut for the absolutely most rudimentary way of representing the number, and that is with a unique string of the 2 most rudimentary numbers of 0 and 1.

The use of geometric signifiers in our language, like 4, 5, 9, 39, etc. are the equivalent to the difference between programming with zero and one foot pedals and a high level language like C, where we are using non-numeric forms to denote groups of binary strings. But binary is the reality of the matter when it comes to the numbers themselves.
 
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Thread Starter

Jennifer Solomon

Joined Mar 20, 2017
112
This is the kind of clarity of logic processing I'd like to see (it's just an example to see where I'd like it to be reduced to):

Human brain processes with bits/numbers.

AND

If the thought forms are separate from the bits that label and arithmetically/logically process them

AND

The forms exist within the being as some thing addressable by the being

THEN

They exist as something not in the brain

AND

There must be a storage, retrieval and data processing element in the being that is not the brain

AND

This is the basis of how to solve the question, "Where the dog is in the light". Because one can't solve the problem without making the dog and light separate from the bits, and by extension, the brain itself.


If you can agree to this, we can move forward in trying to triangulate the nature of the mind as the "cockpit" of perception into "reality". This is why I insist bits are numbers, because it's part of bracketing the brain into a limited discrete medium with discrete capacities. If not, I don't see how to easily continue up the mountain.
 
Jennifer, I haven't read all of this so if this has been said, oh well! :) If I follow what you're asking I know of no way it can be done in an analog format which I assume is magnetic tape? (Please, I don't want to argue if tape is digital or analog.) It's been common practice for years now to take old tape recordings, digitize them and remaster the originals with technology that didn't exist at time the recording was made. What can be done about altering the original "bad note" depends on the capabilities of the equipment used and the engineer operating the equipment. Isolating the violin really isn't all that difficult. What is difficult is capturing the harmonics and overtones of the violin that are mixed in with the sound of the entire orchestra. Done poorly and the tone and timber of the entire orchestra is also effected and can in the end sound worse than the effect of the violin's single bad note. A good engineer knows when to stop filtering and realizes this is the best that they can do. After this is done the violin's bad note is altered to the right note and inserted back in to the recording. It was explained to me once that what's done is the original sound\note is digitally sped up or slowed down until it is in tune. The machines will automatically make the necessary time alterations.

Music has been a hobby of mine for more than 50 years and we've taken recordings mostly from the 70's and played around with altering the old recordings done an old Teac 8 track reel to reel. This was all done with technology that is now more than 20 years old and we were no where near professional recording engineers. I believe everything used came from the local Guitar Center. Who knows what can be done now? I don't.

EDIT: Psycho physics? I haven't a clue.
 

Thread Starter

Jennifer Solomon

Joined Mar 20, 2017
112
Jennifer, I haven't read all of this so if this has been said, oh well! :) If I follow what you're asking I know of no way it can be done in an analog format which I assume is magnetic tape? (Please, I don't want to argue if tape is digital or analog.) It's been common practice for years now to take old tape recordings, digitize them and remaster the originals with technology that didn't exist at time the recording was made. What can be done about altering the original "bad note" depends on the capabilities of the equipment used and the engineer operating the equipment. Isolating the violin really isn't all that difficult. What is difficult is capturing the harmonics and overtones of the violin that are mixed in with the sound of the entire orchestra. Done poorly and the tone and timber of the entire orchestra is also effected and can in the end sound worse than the effect of the violin's single bad note. A good engineer knows when to stop filtering and realizes this is the best that they can do. After this is done the violin's bad note is altered to the right note and inserted back in to the recording. It was explained to me once that what's done is the original sound\note is digitally sped up or slowed down until it is in tune. The machines will automatically make the necessary time alterations.

Music has been a hobby of mine for more than 50 years and we've taken recordings mostly from the 70's and played around with altering the old recordings done an old Teac 8 track reel to reel. This was all done with technology that is now more than 20 years old and we were no where near professional recording engineers. I believe everything used came from the local Guitar Center. Who knows what can be done now? I don't.

EDIT: Psycho physics? I haven't a clue.
Thanks for the input... the whole discussion changed trajectory severely from the original inquiry into a deep metaphysical discussion about the nature of reality for the last several pages (predominantly between bogosort and me). Feel free to give a read and comment if you have any thoughts on our discussion!
 
This is the kind of clarity of logic processing I'd like to see (it's just an example to see where I'd like it to be reduced to):

Human brain processes with bits/numbers.
After reading more of this thread I see my last post was fairly irrelevant.

""Human brain processes with bits/numbers."

Really? Why do you think this? The brain isn't a computer. At least in the sense of your laptop. You can't write code and down load while simultaneously erasing existing code.

The brain is an electro-chemical neural processor that concurrently operates at different frequencies and waves. We may try and reduce brain processes to bits/numbers to try and understand brain processes but there is nothing to suggest how we reduce the brain for our understanding is also how the brain works. The brain also functions multidimensionally, something computer designers have been trying unsuccessfully to do for years. Minor successes yes. Fully functional, no. A computer is also limited to doing what it's programmed to do. The brain on the other hand doesn't need instructions to act. From what I've read, the brain cannot process all the information constantly coming to it so it automatically filters at different levels what we need. It's why we can recall what we know we know and it can also recall information we were unaware we knew.

Something about music though. Why do so many audiophiles praise vinyl over digital recordings? Because vinyl captures the character of the music which digital can't. With digital you may be able to be told what is or isn't in tune but digital won't know the difference between a Stradivarius and a student violin. They both can be in tune. Digital can capture characteristics but not character. Too many, digital music is just plain old bland and dry. Too many others music is an emotional experience that digital can't capture like vinyl can and does. Although neither makes bad music good.

EDIT, yes, I caught on. lol
 
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