What exactly is digital? According to Bing, it means expression in a series of numbers or relating to computer technology. In a world that flattens digital as a synonym the same as technology, it’s more than that. Eyman points out, “any system made up of individual elements satisfies the technical definiton.” It’s latin roots- digitus, meaning fingers – remind us how we associate now with screens, and data. Now here is where I challenge the thought.
If it has a start does it have an end?
Will the word digital reach its final form or is it a bottomless tunel that we continue to fall through? Does it stop at the screen, code or algorithm? In the earlier part of the same passage, it speaks on how our actions create a trail of data like when Alice from alice in wonderland spots the white rabit, and chases the trail down the rabbit hole.
I’m Down here!
Let’s dive deeper into the rabbit whole, where the code runs beneath our feet, and has created this mass infrastruce of DIGITAL. From our traffic lights, to type writer, we take a moment to realize that digital isn’t really a tool, except more like a mirror that decides which version of us reflects back and in each reflection, theirs a shift. One version where you are pixelated, another where you are smiling, and one is a ghost. Which one is real? It’s not really up to us to decide, it’s been decided for us, it shows us how to see the world, and how the world learns to see us.
Fall Deeper… deeper
The deeper we fall into digital, we realize that it’s an application of knowledge within a system. Each industry, each network, takes the word “digital” and reinterprets it through its version of logic. In medicine, we have MRI, in finance we have taxes, in communication, we have language and linguistics, Every value is distinctly different yet chained to the next moment. It’s like a staircase into the void.
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