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I disagree, deeply. This is simply a different medium — this is basically an illustrated article, where the illustrations happen to contain motion. It's not th

I disagree, deeply. This is simply a different medium — this is basically an illustrated article, where the illustrations happen to contain motion. It's not that text and video are that different in terms of information, it's that they differ in timing. For example, a narrated video will likely linger on some images, then cut to something else, and so on, all the while being edited in a particular way, with a particular tempo. And video presents only one frame at a time. With text, I can choose my tempo, and since everything is presented in two dimensions I can skip or skim much more easily. It should also be said that text can be read much faster than a narrator can give me the same amount of information. Video is seldom information-dense (in terms of useful information, not raw pixels).

anigbrowl 13y ago
ACHILLES: You are right on both counts. But even though the record is there "all at once," as you put it, we can draw sounds out of it bi by bit. The idea behind this is that the grooves pass slowly under the needle, and as they pass, the needle vibrates slightly in response to those very fine designs you earlier referred to. Somehow, in those designs are coded musical sounds, which are processed and passed on to the loudspeaker, to dispense to our waiting ears. Thus we manage to hear the music just as you said, "a bit at a time." The whole process is quite marvelous, I should say. TORTOISE: Well, it is marvelously complicated, I'll grant you that. But why don't you do as I do just hang the record up on your wall and enjoy its beauty all at once, instead of in small pieces doled out ove a period of time? Is it that somehow there is a masochistic pleasure in the pain of doling out its beauties so slowly? I am always against masochism. Douglas Hofstadter, Godel, Escher, Bach

anigbrowl 13y ago

ACHILLES: You are right on both counts. But even though the record is there "all at once," as you put it, we can draw sounds out of it bi by bit. The idea behind this is that the grooves pass slowly under the needle, and as they pass, the needle vibrates slightly in response to those very fine designs you earlier referred to. Somehow, in those designs are coded musical sounds, which are processed and passed on to the loudspeaker, to dispense to our waiting ears. Thus we manage to hear the music just as you said, "a bit at a time." The whole process is quite marvelous, I should say. TORTOISE: Well, it is marvelously complicated, I'll grant you that. But why don't you do as I do just hang the record up on your wall and enjoy its beauty all at once, instead of in small pieces doled out ove a period of time? Is it that somehow there is a masochistic pleasure in the pain of doling out its beauties so slowly? I am always against masochism. Douglas Hofstadter, Godel, Escher, Bach