> _“What important truth do very few people agree with you on?”_
(living thread)
**_Everything_ is quantifiable, and should be quantified.**
Everything is a #measure or can be measured.
#Science can study anything, and #mathematics is the language of science.
The fact that some aspects of life seem hard to estimate doesn't mean we are better off not even trying and coming up with our best approximation.
More #information rarely hurts, and even rough approximations (accompanied by their respective confidence intervals) are useful information.
One can measure, weigh and analyse… and still be sensitive, funny, romantic, impressionable, intuitive, creative — if one so chooses after all the (numeric) information is available.
@tripu
Go tell this to anti realists.
Surely measuring things often improves information and knowledge, but that doesn't mean everything is quantifiable.
@rastinza What isn't?
@tripu
Whose life is better, what is the meaning of life, position and momentum of an electron
Science can study some things, to some others it can offer no response; for example it cannot answer the question "is science a good way to explain the world?"
> Position and momentum of an electron
Yes, I think you hit on a valid edge case: singularities (in the physics sense). At quantum level and black hole level my claim might well fail 😅
> [Science] cannot answer the question "is science a good way to explain the world?"
Yes, it can. Put science to compete against alternatives (intuition, religion, tradition, randomness, etc) to make predictions about a specific phenomenon. See which does better. Rinse and repeat. Science comes ahead in the aggregate.
@tripu
One edge case is enough to falsify a whole theory.
Making predictions does not equate to explaining something: neural networks for example make very good predictions about stuff, however provide no explanation.
Moreover, you cannot consider religion and tradition as alternatives to science since these do not work in the same field.
How can you evaluate which works better if they provide answers to different questions?
The scientific method is based on several axioms, thus one might simply disregard it completely if he disagrees with one of those.
> _“One edge case is enough to falsify a whole theory.”_
I'm happy for my claim that “math is everywhere and numbers are useful to us humans in all domains of life” to be limited by the Uncertainty Principle. There's still an awful lot of useful applications outside of that. After all, when was the last time you felt the UP was constraining your options in life?
> _“Making predictions does not equate to explaining something: neural networks for example make very good predictions about stuff, however provide no explanation.”_
Agreed. Still, science and math do tend to make predictions _and_ explain far more than anything else we know. Even when science or engineering can't “explain” but just “predict accurately”, they're terribly useful, and better than anything else. Don't you agree?
> _“You cannot consider religion and tradition as alternatives to science since these do not work in the same field.
How can you evaluate which works better if they provide answers to different questions?”_
What questions do religion or tradition answer better than science?
> _“The scientific method is based on several axioms, thus one might simply disregard it completely if he disagrees with one of those.”_
Agreed. But that's true of _any_ epistemic system. That's not a weakness of science. (And I would claim that science needs fewer and simpler axioms than, say, Christianity.)
@tripu
I do agree with you in almost everything, but even though you believe that everything is quantifiable, you have no way to prove it is, while I did provide valid examples of things which are not quantifiable.
Thus, according to the scientific method, not everything is quantifiable.
Religion provides clear answers to the questions "why are we here" "what is the purpose of life" and so on
Tradition provides guidance on how to behave in certain situations, something that science cannot do: science can help you understand the outcomes of certain actions but it doesn't tell you which one to perform, while instead tradition does guide you in your decision making.
Science and technology are useful, I never said otherwise.
The fact that religion is also based on axioms doesn't change anything. One could consider the axioms on which religion is based as correct and the ones on which science is based as incorrect and still use science because it works.
Just like when you use classical mechanics, you know that the theory is wrong but it does work well enough to do what you need to do.
Keep in mind, I'm not religious at all.
If you believe that science provides real knowledge, that is fine; but it's just your belief and you have no way to prove it to be true.
@rastinza @tripu but everything *is* quantifiable in principle, even if we *can't* quantify it, which is a different thing. An electron has a position and a momentum, even if we can't predict both. A black hole has properties, even if we can't understand them from our dimension. There's a number of atoms of hydrogen in all of the golf balls in the world even if we wouldn't be able to count them. It's all measurable, in principle. Science provides the single best approximation.
@ImperfectIdea
> Meaning has no quantity
> It's like asking the size of blue
> Everything is quantifiable
Decide yourself, either everything is quantifiable or not.
If everything is quantifiable, then concepts should be quantifiable as well.
If concepts are not quantifiable, then the statement that everything is quantifiable is false, which is what I'm saying since the beginning.
@tripu
@rastinza @tripu this is not the gotcha you think it is 😆 It doesn't mean that any sentence you can construct in a language will have a measurable answer.
"What's the weight of January?" is invalid.
"What's the average height of elfs?" is invalid.
"What's the meaning of life?" could very well be invalid.
The above is just the kind of example I was looking for!.. More below - not a rant, just trying to work it out... so thank you for all comments before....
@ImperfectIdea @rastinza @tripu
The above is just the kind of example I was looking for!
More below - not a rant, just trying to work it out... so thank you for all comments before and I reserve right to change / correct it with your assistance / improve all this...
just speed read this...
and if you prefer audio then this might help for better consumption for these points...
http://freeschool.0id.org/numbers-discriminate/
MAIN WRITING / WORK IN PROGRESS
So I'm trying to get to some of these points because of how it seems some people can't do it any of the other way of thinking (so not you guys necessarily but almost everyone lol).
I think we just came from this primitive-counting 'everyone can count no probs' perspective and mixed complete things... which would ALL be ok... if it wasn't for humanity in the middle of it all!
Why to care about all other things is another way of looking at instead of specific metrics.
Why look at all life when you have such measured ways on a ruler?
Without hating anyone for there trade or practise in STEM - I'm realising (apart from trouble in life using STEM as a tool) that itself was born by incrementing Governments mostly and more recently we are realising or re-realising (as every civilisation perhaps does) especially when abusing it even more... computer says no / doesn't understand us... and that is deliberate distancing from humans (I don't have to deal with them, they just follow this tool / machine).
It's for me a kind of obvious filter since the other parts of life are lacking (people stuff mainly and largely undeveloped) so IF mostly one expects not being able to relax away from the number (and what first post mentions) for our own human interpretation then I feel we're already losing / lost.
Being valid or not basically in the end. Lol...
People are also improvable but in their own way so this way almost robs of that though we might say 'it's just a tool' but if developed by people and hammers and guns everywhere then it does make it more obvious (I consider computerisation and algorithms weaponising supermarket so go figure that one!)
I've had sincere conversations where there are small agreements about what humans need etc that include getting away from numbers or this mentality while it being tempting to count (maybe the most basics I can agree with but speculating too much is erroneous).
Overall achievable virtues are there by people but from lack of way or 'answer' or 'solution' the needle somehow jumps back into that numerical / solution-first thinking... and sometimes nothing without expecting a chain much like a miracle!
"Surely you don't mean stop the machine and look at ourselves a bit more?"
It's almost a perfectionism perhaps or too much of expectation / dependency on something else... even laziness
Again if it was kind of everything as Tech and dependency / basing off what we know is killing faster, then hey it wouldn't be so bad!
Using another tool more than self and whatever you can do I guess is the humble ecological way with little factory type expansion and more agreements with people first AND THEN all the rest maybe incremented / reducible (if it's not possible to not have then that's bad / usually not natural or planet based).
So rather than binary, a gradient or dialling down some of the damage from tech use (not saying 0 just not steroid pumped from USA) - this is one of the common examples where people immediately jump into thinking I men 0 but maybe 2000-2010 era!
MISSING MENTALITY
It's as if there is a logic board is missing (like a missing sound card or 2nd graphics or humanity card missing)
Happens in everyone in different topics but I think but this type of conversation sees chinks in armour from pure-numbers or tech-defaults as our main staple... (who cares who made it, it's iterations and damage elsewhere)
Unless you spend most of your life working snapping out of it and that beautiful honed gun of perfection then probably you are not looking toward humans and more machines (which anyway is made by humans and politics so this is why I think there is short-circuit in my brain and cognitive dissonance / disconnect from others... because it's one and the same thing(s) by people and old mentalities!) so then admitting some of these things seems key.... not separate from bastards who made it before (or just unknowingly people doing for the Empire) and it's very clever like saying money is just paper and machines are just metal.
"It's just how you spend it" lol
I almost hope I'm wrong and not pushing too hard either... at the same time I feel like a pioneer of thought probably re-doing what has been said but snuffed from lack of use and support by system and people in such an environment.
Just seems really obvious and I've lost enough chess games to admit defeat if I'm wrong so please let me know also without hating - I basically think humanity GREW UP on this and well DADs all around didn't always know better in these other fields and actually knew exactly what and how they were doing things against nations, from chemistry, biology, geography. etc all toward domination...
Anyway....
As said in first post - it's a good point- evn sound right... I think is really difficult - like telling people you're just a number but at the same time caring for them (?).
Measuring and being sensitive... hmmm (the emotional plane is not always there or subjective... or just needs for the human to be themselves)
Numbers do discriminate unique life elements, people and life in general if they try too hard without measuring *everything* AND also asking someone's own preferences and their own measuring system
Again some audio if wanted:
http://freeschool.0id.org/numbers-discriminate/
In the ecology of life just as different animals can fit in / 'work' together I think that's people (like animals tht just need to get along).. so I'm not excluding numbers and people here... but really it's hard not to go too far in it's binary usage and how bad measuring can get or people can lose count....
Summary: the middle is unclear/sometimes non existent and actually counting in the moment every time is just better for less abuse / forgetting / the human effect / whose doing the books/accounting.
I appreciate when many technologists simply can't see the point of doing anything until there is a solution...
and don't realise "not doing" IS the solution sometimes... it's like not an option for them.
To stop is not possible sometimes.
To look at one's self (in the analysis) and with others (it seems so separate / distant with tech) then understanding what boxes they are in / perpetuating and what they want more of. (possibly more control of tech itself by letting it go!)
Again people / regulators behind it all know about this and keep us hooked... it's often assumed that it's innocent-tech or non-manipulation or even unplanned stuff. I think measurably the opposite and very clever restriction WHILE giving (in one door, closing behind and giving 'new' / bad options continually / as stepping process).
Self-control perhaps is hardest in the analogue way. The shit people DON'T want to do :)
'Always better with tech' rather than eco-shitty chatting to each other stuff :)
It is possible to have TOO MANY SOLUTIONS also!
So it's not like waiting another YouTube comes along to fill your endless tech satisfaction. It is about stopping to use it until something comes a long (or better you help find others to make it)...
So habitual or business things with Google and all that... come into it but the Google could be just the externalisation and dependency etc for Gov that we allow by thinking it's not political
... the tech candy / unmeasurable damage from extraction / factories / transportation / geo-political (mixed countries) with mixed parts of it to make it and get it all to us.
This practical 'doing' is messing stuff up too and I kind of get it but there is a case for:
" it's gone too far people "...
"hang on this is too fast for us to understand"
"the tech tree branch is too heavy for life "
" We can't even calculate the real cost in money of this tech or cost to cultures for their metals we are buying through God-know what ways ".
Apologise for this but a certain blindness seems to come with this area.
It's FULL of politics and built from those politically controlling over the years.
I'll rewrite this if necessary (do help if you wish or make it on your own website to revise)
So I do love the invalid questions or realms it cannot bridge in quantifying, but also just lessening soem parts and letting other thigns growing (imagine something overgrown and not letting sunlight to other parts of garden).
And much like a different language or measuring system many things can't do right type of measurements like the value of garden itself.
Perhaps the shortest way is saying the meaning is very much lost DURING measuring.
Looking at a few attributes from 100's we/people want or gradients of different values... not exactly what the tech was developed for... and it's actively not measuring other attributes because that would take too much time (lol).
Some attributes are looked and some not hence creating a silent discrimination or mess of the uncalculated all which inescapable and mounts up as inter-operated things with others tart to lose [relativity / meaning / glue / more words?] and like a axis looses stability since all is at a changing state and different value to different elements over any given period of time!
INVISIBLE CALCULATIONS: What you don't see is how measurements are not being used not just the measurement of numbers which also can be questionably used... (the method is critical more than masurements itself) and then the interpretation over and over loses it's focus and meaning over time...
@undefined @ImperfectIdea @rastinza @tripu
This kind of initial statement vs. the above line *seems* quite clear and clean... MY FORMULA TO DEMONSTRATE THAT:
- You/People are measuring some things and not others
- You/People are using some method which also includes / excludes things (there is not 1 method or 100 methods to cover everything reasonably without over-doing it.
So perhaps just training humans to balance this all rather accepting some actually don't mind 'losing in the balances' (it doesn't have to be pure numbers but by how comfortable these human animals are in living and balancing that instead.
- Numbers try to standardise what shouldn't be (humans, organic life matter, stuff that wasn't numerical to start with exactly or not as head classification - it's organic and analogue <-- something like that)
The number - "I know best and I can measure it" perspective is dangerous as I see it and like calling something like life and humans by another name... Even only loosely using this (plus other methods) is borderline fascistic with making drama here about that word! Nobody wants to be a number in your counting.
So inside a questionable method I feel like this is actually a dangerous perspective as I can't see how it can't go right! Usually it's ok with 50/50 stuff but this is like only good for measuring wood and cutting it immediately lol even storing wood means it deform or dehydrates if you measure years later!!)... things perish... plastics fade and crack... people lose faith... lots of obscure examples
I think numbers-attitude (loosely calling it that) is rife in engineers or engineer-mentality - just dogged or dog-focussed about it and then trying to force it on almost everything forgetting unique unidentifiable humans... or changing organic life... not digits
Added point:
Digits can be static and even if there not they need 'viewing' or another human to interpret... so you have this constant human factor (more than once) in how stats or numbers are used and like many accountants they are all using the numbers differently
(even the same numbers)...
**** that is what you don't see (how it's being used not just the measurement) ****
