For the lust of numbers
Baseball is my favorite pro sport because they keep such great statistics on hitters and pitchers. And every action exists within an illusionary connection to past performance.
Myself, I found a love for running, from the idea that performance can be measured, and that feedback encourags me to see improvement, to test different approaches to training, or running and see what happens.
And global warming, the CO2 records since 1950's show our danger, even if not predictive of effects, proof we are changing the atmosphere. And going back up to 650,000 years, ice samples show CO2 levels higher now than in all geological recent history. Using seafloor sedimentation, other measures allow proediction of CO2 back up to 30 million years or more.
Science is dependent upon measurements and numbers and comparisons of varied conditions for building theories of how things work.
Yet, for all that apparent success, there's still illusions. And even if our statistics are accurate, there may be other things we can't measure, or haven't anyway that drive change in more hidden ways. Study of biology must rely on more difficult analysis than the hard (dead) sciences of simple matter. Correlations and patterns can be found which have no reality except coincindence or parallel development.
And worse than our ability to see patterns that are not there, we have a LOVE to exaggerate - to find "the best", "the highest", "the fastest", and focus our attention on the extremes because they are more fun.
Lusting for numbers is a silly thought, but it is a wish for power, a wish for control. Sometimes this wish allows us to find what we're looking for. Sometimes the search is hopeless, but we keep looking anyway, looking to the stars to explain our lives.
It's hard for me to know how numbers ought to be played in the political world. We all want "hard numbers" if they exist, but numbers can suggest certainty that isn't there, and those interested in an agenda can too easily allow themselves to "overplay" the evidence for effect. Like "the boy who cried wolf". Doomsdayers are exciting, but if they really want to help change things, they must find a way to present both their certainty and uncertainty, boring or not.
I'm a numbers man, to be sure. Not 100% of my being, but I know it dominates easily, as I retreat from my weak points. Whether political debate, or understanding a lover's quarrel, the facts so often can't be agreed on quickly, and something else must step forward in this hole, something that can maintain the tension of ignorance, keeping truth as best it can be played.
Well, just obvious stuff on a warm afternoon, I ought to be outside having fun!
Myself, I found a love for running, from the idea that performance can be measured, and that feedback encourags me to see improvement, to test different approaches to training, or running and see what happens.
And global warming, the CO2 records since 1950's show our danger, even if not predictive of effects, proof we are changing the atmosphere. And going back up to 650,000 years, ice samples show CO2 levels higher now than in all geological recent history. Using seafloor sedimentation, other measures allow proediction of CO2 back up to 30 million years or more.
Science is dependent upon measurements and numbers and comparisons of varied conditions for building theories of how things work.
Yet, for all that apparent success, there's still illusions. And even if our statistics are accurate, there may be other things we can't measure, or haven't anyway that drive change in more hidden ways. Study of biology must rely on more difficult analysis than the hard (dead) sciences of simple matter. Correlations and patterns can be found which have no reality except coincindence or parallel development.
And worse than our ability to see patterns that are not there, we have a LOVE to exaggerate - to find "the best", "the highest", "the fastest", and focus our attention on the extremes because they are more fun.
Lusting for numbers is a silly thought, but it is a wish for power, a wish for control. Sometimes this wish allows us to find what we're looking for. Sometimes the search is hopeless, but we keep looking anyway, looking to the stars to explain our lives.
It's hard for me to know how numbers ought to be played in the political world. We all want "hard numbers" if they exist, but numbers can suggest certainty that isn't there, and those interested in an agenda can too easily allow themselves to "overplay" the evidence for effect. Like "the boy who cried wolf". Doomsdayers are exciting, but if they really want to help change things, they must find a way to present both their certainty and uncertainty, boring or not.
I'm a numbers man, to be sure. Not 100% of my being, but I know it dominates easily, as I retreat from my weak points. Whether political debate, or understanding a lover's quarrel, the facts so often can't be agreed on quickly, and something else must step forward in this hole, something that can maintain the tension of ignorance, keeping truth as best it can be played.
Well, just obvious stuff on a warm afternoon, I ought to be outside having fun!
posted by Ares Olympus at 1:29 PM
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