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September 08, 2005
Forests and trees
I found myself visualizing the difference between the people and the multitude as such:
The notion of the people is like a series of dots (or data points, or molecules) constantly moving in sync in space. They're (it's?) like a supersolid in that way. The multitude, on the other hand, is a set of molecules all moving in various directions and with various velocities (and constantly changing).
From afar, the two will appear quite similar: a fairly even gray. You address too great a reality and must utilize averages. It's when you look closely that you can assess the instructive differences.
This hints at the importance of the scale at which you measure something. There is an anecdote that I've encountered when reading (I forget what, I think it was Stephen Jay Gould referencing another source)... The length of the coastline of Cape Cod is contingent upon the fineness of your measuring stick. If you take an accurate map, and calculate the length at scale, you will get quite a different result than if you were to focus in to the point that you're wrapping your line around individual rocks (or grains of sand). The latter measurement will profoundly exceed the former; yet both could be said to be true.
Posted by matthew peterson at September 8, 2005 04:16 PM