**3. Pre-Wilden views of analog and digital**

Wilden cites John von Neumann's classic work *The Computer and the Brain* ([2], pp. 157-158). Von Neumann talked about analog and digital computers but did not interpret human cognition in terms of the analog. Analog computers work by representing numbers by units of actual physical quantities, while digital machines represent them "as in conventional writing or printing, i.e. as a sequence of decimal digits" ([4], pp. 3, 6). He thought our cognition was basically digital with some analog features ([4], p. 58). He emphasized the binary nature of nerve impulses. They were basically "on–off switches," and he put less emphasis on the threshold features Wilden emphasized ([4], pp. 40-44). What is "non-digital-like" in our brains is the result of their working statistically rather than analogically. If we imagine computing machines to have existed prior to the human brain, we might say the brain gave up precision in arithmetic to gain "an improvement in logics" ([4], p. 80). The nervous system uses two types of communication, the "non-arithmetical" and the "arithmetical." The latter includes "communications of orders," which are logical. Our nervous systems require less "logical depth" than digital computers, so statistical information is adequate ([4], pp. 76-82).

Hubert L. Dreyfus conceptualized human cognition in terms of the analog in his 1965 book *Alchemy and Artificial Intelligence* but appears to have given up that understanding in his later work *On the Internet* (2009). In the first work, he lays out three areas that digital computers are unable to handle: fringe consciousness, essence/accident discrimination, and ambiguity tolerance [5]. Dreyfus's conception of the analog appears to have influenced Wilden ([2], p. 157). One problem he lays out in some detail is language processing. It is difficult to understand language as simply a list of words in sentences constructed by rules. Dreyfus cites Wittgenstein on how our understanding of language appears to be inseparably connected to the way we live. Our lives provide us with the context that makes words and sentences

understandable ([6], p. 33). This is an example of "tacit" knowledge and ambiguity tolerance. He cites Bar-Hillel for the view that machines can only make good translations of language if they can learn ([6], p. 35).

Dreyfus quotes a statement by Bullock on "graded synaptic potential," similar to Wilden's "threshold effects," arguing that the nervous system is a "complex analog device" rather than digital ([6], p. 56). He goes on to speculate on "wet" computers that simulate the way the human brain works, perhaps taking the form of an analog computer using ion solutions whose electrical properties change to model relationships. However, he cites Maurice Merleau-Ponty for doubts this would be adequate, since the human body as a whole plays an important role in facilitating intelligent behavior ([6], p. 59). This is the primary theme of Dreyfus's later work, *On the Internet*.
