The human condition: digital vs analog intelligence

BEING ANALOG

DONALD A. NORMAN

From Norman, D. A. (In press, Fall, 1998). The invisible computer. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Copyright © 1997, 1998 Donald A. Norman. All rights reserved.

Making Sense of the World
Humans Versus Computers
Biological Versus Technological Evolution
The Ever-Increasing Pace of Change
Treating People Like Machines
The World Is Not Neat and Tidy
Making Sense of the World
Human Error
Humans & Computers as Cooperating Systems
Chapter 7: Notes

We are analog beings trapped in a digital world, and the worst part is, we did it to ourselves.

We humans are biological animals. We have evolved over millions of years to function well in the environment, to survive. We are analog devices following biological modes of operation. We are compliant, flexible, tolerant. Yet we people have constructed a world of machines that requires us to be rigid, fixed, intolerant. We have devised a technology that requires considerable care and attention, that demands it be treated on its own terms, not on ours. We live in a technology-centered world where the technology is not appropriate for people. No wonder we have such difficulties.

Here we are, wandering about the world, bumping into things, forgetful of details, with a poor sense of time, a poor memory for facts and figures, unable to keep attention on a topic for more than a short duration, reasoning by example rather than by logic, and drawing upon our admittedly deficient memories of prior experience. When viewed this way, we seem rather pitiful. No wonder that we have constructed a set of artificial devices that are very much not in our own image. We have constructed a world of machinery in which accuracy and precision matter. Time matters. Names, dates, facts, and figures matter. Accurate memory matters. Details matter.

All the things we are bad at matter, all the things we are good at are ignored. Bizarre.


All things seem to consist of vibrations expressed by waves, whether being gas,liquid,or solid. These waves all seem to behave within the laws of the octave and can influence other waves by sympathetic vibration, thus the senses that exist in all lifeforms, like in plants. The Mimosa or sensitive plant, for example would be a classic example. Our hearing, sight, touch, and any kind of extrasensory perception reflects this.
All of our thought processes seem to function in an analog fashion,so converting these processes to digital, in my opinion could only be useful as a tool. The actual perceptions have to be analog to process the vibes, and digital machines might someday come close, but never match a perfect harmony within a wavelenghth by sympathetic vibration. Just speculating, but it seems logical that maybe somewhere in time and space is a computer based on the octave that operates by sympathetic vibrations,actual wavelengths, and frequencies.