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We are, as the JC frequently complains, in a swoon to the [[Reductionism|reducibility]] of all things. | We are, as the JC frequently complains, in a swoon to the [[Reductionism|reducibility]] of all things. | ||
This usually involves converting all the things that we do and that happen to us into numerical [[data]] points. | This usually involves converting all the irreducible things that we do and that happen to us into numerical [[data]] points. | ||
“Things that we do and that happen to us” are unique, four-dimensional, social constructions. They are [[ineffable]]. Converting them to words necessarily involves a loss of information. Converting them to numbers even more so. We cannot restore this loss of fidelity through statistical techniques. We can mimic it, but that is something different. | |||
Data points, in themselves, are no more naturally [[effable]] than “odd things that happen to us” from which they are extruded, of course. But numbers have the quality of submitting easily to aggregation, symbolic manipulation and statistical techniques, in a way that “odd things that happen to us” do not. | Data points, in themselves, are no more naturally [[effable]] than “odd things that happen to us” from which they are extruded, of course. But numbers have the quality of submitting easily to aggregation, symbolic manipulation and statistical techniques, in a way that “odd things that happen to us” do not. | ||
This is the singular benefit of datafication. To simplify a complex artefact down to a number, or set of numbers, is to ''symbolise'' it. Symbols we can subject to ''symbol processing''. But we have switched domains: we have left the offline and gone online. We have left the domain of the signified and entered that of the signifier. | |||
What one has rendered as data, one can use in calculations. With these one can generate abstract mathematical properties: a mean, a median, a mode. One can calculate probabilities. | What one has rendered as data, one can use in calculations. With these one can generate abstract mathematical properties: a mean, a median, a mode. One can calculate probabilities. | ||
Applying a number to an artefact is a linguistic operation, like assigning a noun. The calculations we perform with that number tell us about the mathematical properties of the number. They do not tell us | Applying a number to an artefact is a linguistic operation, like assigning a noun. The calculations we perform with that number tell us about the mathematical properties of the number. They do not tell us about the artefact it signifies. This is easy to see with an average: the average height of the passengers in this train carriage tell us nothing about any of the passengers. Yet so much of the modern world measures against the average! | ||
We say the average is an emergent property of the group, the the say that wetness is an emergent property of a group of water molecules. But is it? | |||
We harvest information from artefacts, convert it into data, generalise it, manipulate it mathematically, and then apply it back to ''similar'' artefacts. A statistical method is legitimate if it applies to identical artefacts. We suppose it to be largely legitimate if it applies to similar artefacts. | |||
Dice are not machined perfectly. But they are similar. The broad principles of probability apply to them generally, roughly. | |||
But “similar” is a word, and therefore a value judgment. It exists in the domain of signifiers, not signified. We are similar in that we are all homo sapiens. But that signifier of similarity is not enough to determine breakfast preferences. | |||
In the same way that | In the same way that we can calculate the probability of rolling consecutive sixes so, it seems, can we calculate the probability of rain tomorrow, a cut in stamp duty in the spring, or a thirty-point intraday drop in the NASDAQ. | ||
This is an invalid move, unless the artefacts were in the first place | This is an invalid move, unless the artefacts were in the first place sufficiently and relevantly similar. The sides of a dice are to a large degree. Clouds and weather patterns are, to a small degree. The conditions propelling the NASDAQ — humans — are not relevantly identical. | ||
But numbers are alluring. They are under our control. They ''behave''. They bend to the spreadsheet’s will. The spreadsheet’s will is our will. | But numbers are alluring. They are under our control. They ''behave''. They bend to the spreadsheet’s will. The spreadsheet’s will is our will. | ||