Grounding Analog Computers

نویسنده

  • Bruce J. MacLennan
چکیده

1.0 Is Cognition Discrete or Continuous? 1.1 Although I hate to haggle over words, Harnad's use ofànalog' confuses a number of issues. The problem begins with the phrasèanalog world' in the title, which does not correspond to any technical or nontechnical usage ofànalog' with which I'm familiar. Although I don't know precisely what he means byànalog', it is clearly related to the distinction between analog and digital computers, so I'll consider that rst. 1.1.1 In traditional terminology, analog computers represent variables by continuously-varying quantities, whereas digital computers represent them by discretely-varying quantities (typically, voltages, currents, charges, etc. in both cases). Thus the dierence between analog and digital computation lies in a distinction between the continuous and the discrete, but it is not the precise mathematical distinction. What matters is the behavior of the system at the relevant level of analysis. For example, in an analog computer we treat charge as though it varies continuously, although we know it's quantized (electron charges). Conversely, in a digital computer we imagine we have two-state devices, although we know that the state must vary continuously from one extreme state to the other (voltage cannot change discontinuously). The mathematical distinction between discrete and continuous is absolute, but irrelevant to most physical systems.

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تاریخ انتشار 2007