High Definition televisions feature almost 10 times the number of pixels in a normal television. This requires a digital signal to feed that much information into the set.
What is that?
Why, it's "High Definition"(TM)!
It's sick. What is high definition?
Why, "High Definition" is a way to see things more clearly.
More clearly than what?
Why, than previous methods of seeing, of course. You can actually see more detail than you could with the naked eye.
But it's television.
Yes.
So I am perceiving a representation of reality that is more clear than my own perception of reality unaided by external means?
...right.
Hmm... ideal forms...
What was that?
Nevermind - it's Platonic.
What?
You see that chair over there?
You mean the old leather recliner?
Yep. Would you say that chair is the definition of "chair?"
Why,...I don't know.
You see, "to be or not to be" is not the question. I would say it fits the definition of a chair because the definition is less specific than is that old leather recliner.
What do you mean?
I mean that if that chair defined all chairs then all chairs would have to look exactly like it.
Okay.
Let me draw you something.
There, is that a chair?
Should I say yes?
No
Okay.
It is a representation of the definition of a chair.
You mean it's not the definition of a chair?
Nope. Do you think that old leather recliner looks like
?
Well no.
Again it is still too narrow a definition. How would you define a chair?
Crap, I'm gonna feel stupid. Let's see, a chair is a piece of furniture for people to sit on.
Tell me this: is that chair designed for more than one person? For than matter, are any chairs designed for more than one person?
No... NO - so a chair must be a defined as a piece of furniture designed for one person to sit on.
Seems like Webster's having a little trouble defining a chair. Words don't seem to fit perfectly - had to say "typically."
So what?
So would you say you know what a chair is?
Yes...hell yes I know what a chair is.
Good, but you were having trouble defining it a little while ago too.
...you're ugly.
I only seek to shed the light of "high definition."
Get to it then.
Fine. Somewhere in the collective conciousness of humanity lurks a definition or ideal form of just what a chair is. Using this ideal form we are able to distinguish that bar stool from that old leather recliner chair. So riddle me this, which would you describe as a higher definition of a chair: the old leather recliner or the ideal form of a chair?
Ideal and higher sound like they go together.
True, it's a superficial connection, but it does make a point does it not?
What do you mean?
Well, we have already concluded that
is too specific and thus less than our ideal form or higher definition. How about a photograph of the old leather recliner?
That would be a lower definition too.
Right. What about a television program about that old leather recliner?
Ah...I see what your saying. So by moving closer and closer towards a specific chair in "High Definition" we are actually moving away from the high definition?
Perhaps. Well, "high" could have two meanings after all. A large amount of detail could qualify "X" as "high definiton", but so could "X's" ability to describe an ideal form.
So...
So, "High Definition" (TM) moves us closer to high definition in one sense and further away from it in another.
...fascinating.
There's more.
...you don't say.
We have already noted that "High Definition" (TM) creates a representation of reality more clear than we can perceive with our eyes.
Yes
If we went microscopic then you would find that the old leather recliner is actually a complex structure of atoms and subatomic particles. Now that's high definition, but couldn't we, theoretically, get closer and closer even than that?
Sure
So... just as abstract tools like words create something still too specific to show us the ideal form of a chair, technology, even "High Definition" (TM), creates something too general/undefined to show us an elementally specific chair.
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