During my explorations into the digital and analog, I often encounter a series of frequently asked questions. I will address three of them here...
Question: does it have to be either/or? Must one decide between the digital and the analog? What about digital-analog mixtures? What about ambiguity?
No, it is not necessary to decide. Both/and is a fine solution. There exist endless hybrids and alloys of the digital and the analog. For instance, the analog may be rigorously characterized as a "twin" or "echo" of the digital, rather than its rival or contrary.
However, also note that ambiguity and mixing are characteristic of analogicity. Favoring such things is the analog position par excellence. Hence it is a mistake to assume that the blur or the mixture or the hybrid will escape the digital-analog duality, when, in fact, such endorsements merely reinforce one of the two terms within the duality (the analog). In order to withdraw more definitively from the digital-analog system we will need much more powerful techniques than blurring, mixing, or hybridizing.
Question: Does everything falls exclusively under the digital and the analog? Are these the only two modes of mediation, or do other modes exist?
The best answer derives from a paraphrase of Spinoza. As Spinoza put it, there are infinite attributes of the natural substance, even if we only recognize two of them (thought and extension). Likewise there are no doubt numerous modes of mediation, even if the digital and the analog appear especially frequently.
I tend to focus on four key alternatives to the digital, although this roster of alternatives is not exhaustive. The two primary alternatives to the digital are the irrational and the analogical, forming as they do a kind of logical trio of incompatibility (lógos, álogos, and análogos). I supplement this trio with two more, dialectics and the non-standard method.
The irrational (literally "no ratio" or "no lógos") stipulates that no discrete multiple exists of the form a/b, due to the lack of a common basis monad shared by a and b.
The analogical brings two discrete multiples into a relationship, called a proportion.
Dialectics admits new operations incompatible with the digital, the two most important being contradiction and sublation.
And the non-standard method (from Laruelle), perhaps the most elusive alternative on this roster, stems from a single operation, or, to be more precise, the absence of an operation, namely the absence of the digital decision (the decision to discretize).
Question: What about the digital-analog relation itself? Is this very twofold structure digital or analog? Or is it something else entirely?
The most general answer is that it depends. In one sense the digital-analog relation itself is discrete and binary (hence digital) given that the terms are distinguished and kept apart; in another sense the relation is synthetic and integrated (hence analog) given that they intertwine and form mutual dynamics. In any given situation one must make a judgment to determine if the Rule of Two dominates (digital), or if the Rule of One dominates (analog).
At the same time the digital-analog relation has an almost centrifugal force that tends to undo the relation itself. Despite the description of the analog as a "twin" or "echo" of the digital, it is indeed possible to view the digital-analog relation as a true contradiction, and hence as a dialectical structure. The mutual interplay between the Rule of Two and the Rule of One signals this possibility.
And finally, some will wish to suspend the digital-analog relation entirely, forming a kind of superposition of the two. Here the digital and the analog are merely two aspects of the same phenomenon, like a particle that is also a wave.
Thus the aforementioned alternatives to the digital may also assist in assessing the digital-analog relation itself. For the dialectician, this relation is evidence of a strong contradiction. For the non-standard philosopher, this relation is evidence of an immanent identity.