5 Going back
5.1 As to the meaning ...
And this song is considered a perfect gem,
And as to the meaning, it's what you please.
(C.S. Calverley, Ballad)
This short section is devoted to rounding off the discussion so far. In Section 1 I remarked that a digital picture of some set of interesting features of the world is of no value unless we can examine it in some way – in other words, take it back across the boundary into the human realm. This section briefly takes up this theme, and aims to:
examine what digital representations mean;
outline some of the devices that are used to interpret digital information and turn it back into a form that means something to our human eyes and ears.