What do you prefer to look at? A digital or an analogue clock?
For myself, I prefer the analogue because I can visualise the information. With the analogue I don’t have to look carefully to absorb the information, the position of the dials tell it all. The brain handles analogue information quickly because it works better with shapes than with numbers. Numbers must first be converted for them to have a meaning. You need to attach labels to numbers to trigger an image in your brain.
Models in fashion and dummies in dress-making, are used to convey analogue information. Your brain pulls out a previously stored picture from its “drawers”. If you’ve been brought up on the imperial system with inches, feet, yards and miles and the number comes up in centimetres, it’s of little use because "you don't see it”. You’ve got to convert the number to the units your brain has in store. Being told that someone is 1.70 metres high, doesn’t do it for you.
Think of a gap 1/8th of an inch. You can see it. That would not be the case if you are told that the gap is 3 mms unless you are used to the metric system.
In Japanese writing such as kanji, symbols are shapes that represent real physical things. The characters look like the things they represent. A tree kanji can then be put together to represent a forest and a couple of strokes may be the road to the forest. These characters are pictograms; they have in a sort of shorthand a lot of information that in our alpha-numeric system would need many letters and words to express.
To understand the world around you, you need to appreciate the beauty in shapes. Nature is not described by numbers.Take pictures to appreciate your world! There's the real thing, there's a picture, and then there's a description of it. Pictures are the next best thing.
For myself, I prefer the analogue because I can visualise the information. With the analogue I don’t have to look carefully to absorb the information, the position of the dials tell it all. The brain handles analogue information quickly because it works better with shapes than with numbers. Numbers must first be converted for them to have a meaning. You need to attach labels to numbers to trigger an image in your brain.
Models in fashion and dummies in dress-making, are used to convey analogue information. Your brain pulls out a previously stored picture from its “drawers”. If you’ve been brought up on the imperial system with inches, feet, yards and miles and the number comes up in centimetres, it’s of little use because "you don't see it”. You’ve got to convert the number to the units your brain has in store. Being told that someone is 1.70 metres high, doesn’t do it for you.
Think of a gap 1/8th of an inch. You can see it. That would not be the case if you are told that the gap is 3 mms unless you are used to the metric system.
In Japanese writing such as kanji, symbols are shapes that represent real physical things. The characters look like the things they represent. A tree kanji can then be put together to represent a forest and a couple of strokes may be the road to the forest. These characters are pictograms; they have in a sort of shorthand a lot of information that in our alpha-numeric system would need many letters and words to express.
To understand the world around you, you need to appreciate the beauty in shapes. Nature is not described by numbers.Take pictures to appreciate your world! There's the real thing, there's a picture, and then there's a description of it. Pictures are the next best thing.
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