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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 irreducible 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. ''Numbers.'' | ||
But “things that we do and that happen to us” are not numbers. They 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. | ||