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 Now data, in themselves, are no more naturally [[effable]] than the “things” from which we extract it. But we can run statistical operations on data  in a way we cannot on “things”.
-Observation: statistical manipulation depends first on reduction.
+Observation: statistical manipulation of “things” depends first on reduction.
-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.
+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 ineffable [[offline]] and gone [[online]]. We have left the world of the ''signified'' and entered that of the ''signifier''. <Ref>Note: the [[simulation hypothesis]] is premised on the two domains being identical, because they are, for all intents, ''mathematically'' identical.</Ref>
-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.
+Assigning a number to a thing is no less a creative linguistic operation than giving it a name. The calculations we perform, on that number, tell us about the mathematical properties of that number.<ref>There is a sort of numerology about this. The letters in Adolf Hitler’s name, when divided by his mother’s birth month and multiplied by his father’s age at his birth add up to 666!! They don’t? Then that cannot be his real father!</ref> They do not tell us anything about the artefact it signifies. This is easiest to see with an average: the average height of the passengers in this carriage tells us nothing about any single passenger’s height. Yet so much of the modern world measures against the average!
-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?