Index 
Idea of "Other" Language Morality
Tonight the weather was sort of a mist, but falling, and sort of a drizzle, but not quite enough, so it might be called a mizzle or a drist. A new distinction or class of nature, somewhere along the continuum of the way of things with weather. It seems all classes are somewhere along a continuum, a scale (from one side to another, high to low, yes to no, left to right, right to wrong, close to far, slow to fast, none to all, few to many, zero to infinity, along which I place things. The end points are from our minds; whatever we desire we set as endpoints. If more leeway in classification is desired, we occasionally turn to turnery classification such as igneous rocks, even then though first classifying along each of three separate scales. More dimensions lead to "n" facets of a classification, each usually (always?) a count or estimated proportion along a scalar, but my mind boggles at three, and I can't imagine four, e.g. time, space, matter, and consciousness. Computers do very well with such complexity and sum it all up, as in my site selection report for Yucca Mountain which turned many counts of different values into a single count of value. Values are notably found along scales as are words. Boundaries between classes are always murky, lost in the zone of our inability to perceive or our inattention to distinctions along some scale. Counts are special. They all range from zero to infinity, but most scales of interest for classification use only a portion of this linear space. Even the concept of math itself is made, in part, by this count along scale of two, from yes to no. Counts are used in other ways of thinking as well, such as how many soldiers' deaths are worth a war; science measures, i.e. almost universally counts. Many classifications are definitions of occurrence within measurement ranges of many variables, like the turnery granite or the identification of a Higgs boson. Deep in electronic measurement machines counts are mostly counts of photons or electrons. Since there is always room in the murkiness between distinctions drawn and also infinite room above infinity; the way to complete classification is infinite. Scales are from our minds. Common scales provide common bases for communication. Counts are a link to whatever it is we call reality, which is, it seems, in part, perhaps large part, the sum of our counts filtered through our mental scales. We worry, it seems, so much, and try to convince others about the proper endpoints and slopes, e.g. linear, gaussian, christian, hindu, scientific, supernatural) of our scalar inventions that we forget we are all joyfully sliding down the slopes that come to us by the way of things without charge, except pain and death. What a bargain! |