[Devil Doc]

When my letter to Stereophile was published (a year or two ago), about the slicing and dicing nature of human perception, specifically hearing, the amount of hate email I got was rather astonishing.

That's why my advisor in college, I was a Psyc major, said, "Not everyone is a believer."

Doc

[rbbert]

That's why my advisor in college, I was a Psyc major, said, "Not everyone is a believer."

Doc

In science and human physiology?   

[neobop]

When my letter to Stereophile was published (a year or two ago), about the slicing and dicing nature of human perception, specifically hearing, the amount of hate email I got was rather astonishing.

I didn't read your letter to Stereophile, or the responses.  Within the context of this discussion, the only relevant aspect of such a comment, is what it might take to fool mother nature. If your letter read something like this,

"I've long wondered why some folks make such a big deal about digital sampling. 
Would it trouble you to learn that your perceptual sampling rate is even lower than redbook CD?
Even worse, the various features (amplitude, pitch, etc) of sound are processed separately (works the same way for vision)."

then you probably deserved many of the negative responses.  Kevin says he didn't mean to equate digital sampling with with neurological processing, but he did.  No point in restating the fallacy of such a comparison unless you're prepared to argue that the human brain doesn't have the potential to discern live sound from reproduced sound, and the particulars of that. 

Our understanding of the human brain and sensory functions, is primitive.  For the most part neurologists and psychiatrists are akin to 18th century physicians bleeding patients.  Exactly how does the brain invert the upside down image sent to it from the eyes?  Can we repair/replace damaged retinas or optic nerve bundle?  Why can't we repair hearing instead of putting a hearing aid on, and blasting deficient frequencies?  If different parts of the brain process various aspects of sensory info, exactly what's wrong with that?  When functioning properly, it seems to work pretty good.
neo 

[rbbert]

I was much more basic, simply pointing out that all of our sensory organs/receptors are essentially on/off, or at least quantum based (discrete levels), and the CNS has to assemble and process that data to produce our "perception".  My point was perception involves essentially a D>A conversion.  One big difference between that and digital music reproduction is there is no A>D conversion in nature.

[neobop]

I was much more basic, simply pointing out that all of our sensory organs/receptors are essentially on/off, or at least quantum based (discrete levels), and the CNS has to assemble and process that data to produce our "perception".  My point was perception involves essentially a D>A conversion.  One big difference between that and digital music reproduction is there is no A>D conversion in nature.

That's a stretch.  How can there be a DA conversion when there is no AD conversion?  The processes are so dissimilar, it's not surprising you latched onto something like a neuron firing, or not, and compared to DA conversion.  It's true the number of hair cells is limited (BTW, they can correspond to 160K, not 100K), but this is very different than assigning all the sound at an instant of time, a single number.  Considering the number of receptors, and their also providing amplitude information with their transmission, and the fact that there are 30,000 nerve fibers in the cochlear nerve (50,000 - dogs), I'd say digital and sensory processes have little in common. 

In reviewing these sensory processes, I'm reminded just how amazing physiological functions really are.
neo