Theos-Talk Archives (June 2002 Message tt00032)

Eldon B Tucker wrote:
> Some things are of a continuous nature, like the
> electromagnetic spectrum. But with our senses,
> we perceive one portion of it as heat, another
> as sound, and a third as light. In our experience
> of life, these are discrete senses.

Bite into an onion while holding your nose. The senses are not all that
discrete.

> Other things are
> of a discrete nature like the number and type of
> particles in a particular type of atom, 

If you're still living in the 19th century. In modern physics, that
isn't quite the case.

> or
> particular states like alive/dead or even something
> as simple as what channel on television that
> we might be watching.

But a channel on television is a human-made arbitrary division of a
continuous phenomenon.

> If you have a specific number of continents on
> the earth, separated by ocean, you're dealing
> with something discrete. 

Then Europe, Asia, and Africa were, until the Suez Canal was dug, one
continent, but, when the Suez Canal was dug, Africa suddenly became a
separate continent? Did the Panama Canal make North and South America
separate continents? When the Bering Strait freezes, does that make
North America temporarily part of Asia?

> The same might be said
> of the globes of the Earth Chain. They are
> discrete places where you could exist, each on
> a different plane or subplane.

Or, they all exist simultaneously as a continuity; what we call
"globes" depends on our current level of perception.

> Another aspect of assigning a discrete value
> to a particular sight or sound is with the
> letters of the alphabet, written down on
> paper, or specific sounds that learned as
> words and constitute spoken language. The
> conscious of language represents an imposition
> of a sense of discreteness onto something
> otherwise continuous and arbitrary in
> nature -- the spectrum of audible sound
> and visible markings on a piece of paper.

But still arbitrary divisions made by humanity.

> It's also possible to view how gradual changes
> along a continuous scale result in different sets
> of discrete states. This is illustrated in the
> bifurcation curve. Starting out on the X Axis
> at zero and increasing, the state goes from
> zero (inactivity) to a climbing single value.

A continuity can be defined as an infinite number of discrete states.

Bart Lidofsky