THE ANALOGUE IS THE MEDIUM

Analogue, in these pages, centers on the physical integration that comes from a human hand holding a pencil as marks are made on paper. Pylyshyn broadens our understanding of analogue to include the drawing itself: the analogue is the medium.

“Analog process is one whose behavior must be characterized in terms of intrinsic lawful relations about properties of a particular physical instantiation of a process, rather than in terms of rules and representations (or algorithms). p157.

Our knowledge of our form is of the form. Because analogue is the medium, our holistic knowledge lies within our forms. Our knowledge does not have an arbitrary set of rules applied. It is as if all the knowledge of a form is processed and contained within that form, on the paper, as a holistic entity. We seek intrinsic lawful relations. The analogue is also less ad hoc,

“since it posits a universal constraint that is associated with the medium itself and that is therefore not a free empirical parameter.” p178.

Pylyshyn contrasts analogue with what is called cognitive, or computational. In this mode, images are processed symbolically. Words might be applied as a list of operatives. The processing is extrinsic. The cognitive incorporates the beliefs of subjects. The resultant effect is then rationally explainable. Whereas analogue processing is a discovery about what the underlying mechanisms really are. We reason imagistically.

This really is a powerful insight.

We do process, on our paper, the holistic form. We try to avoid in any way possible the inclusion of symbols, which include words. Our responses are not algorithmic, they are physical. The holistic relations that we draw are constrained: our forms must resolve within the physical world. Any forms that are generated, using for example the Mode Form Combine, rely on the mechanisms and interplay within the medium. We suspend all symbolic operations.

I have not summarized Pylyshyn’s entire paper. But if I did, other shared concepts would include time, form rotation, problem solving (form generation), form analysis (sequence of perceptual events), images outside of Representational Spacetime, etc.

It is amazing to me that basic precepts of Transparent Drawing, the foundation of which is in the book, all remain valid even while digesting the formidable thoughts on image processing of a preeminent cognitive scientist. We absorb Pylyshyn’s concepts while we provide a way forward. Who would have thought that our pathway would accept the understanding that the analogue is the medium.

1. Pylyshyn, Zenon. (1981). The Imagery Debate. In Ned Block (Ed.) Imagery. MIT Press. 1981.