Everything Is Size

Everything is Size

If it exists, its size can be measured – somehow
Given that we never actually know reality, that we can only approximate it in our minds, it should be pointed out that the measure of things is artificial.

The small things that we see and touch have an exact size that we do not and cannot know
Our senses and our measuring instruments can never be as precise as the size of the thing itself

For one thing, the measuring instrument and the units of measure must be smaller than the thing being measured (unless we use fractions of units)
For example, electron microscopes have difficulty directly measuring something smaller than an electron

We know that between any two points there are an infinite number of points
We are limited by our patience
Who wants to measure something to the level of precision of 10-23?
For most purposes that level of precision would be absurd, absurdly expensive, and really, it would still not be the truly precise measure of the thing measured

The same occurs at the other end of the spectrum
We cannot measure anything infinitely large
The units we use are limited in size and we can only produce a limited number of those units
We cannot even determine a fraction of infinity because the divisor is missing

It would take an eternity to measure an infinite distance
We just haven’t got that much time or patience!

The lesson from this is that though everything has size, we always take shortcuts to measuring
We start by speaking in the simplest of terms, the nominal
Something exists or it does not exist
E.g. “there is an apple.”

If we can be more precise with little enough effort, them we might say more or less
E.g. “There is more than one apple”
Then, if more precision is needed we might say six units or six items
E.g. “There are eight apples”.

On a weigh scale at the grocer we might find that the weight of the goods is relevant
E.g. “There are five lbs and six ounces of apples.”

All of these statements may be true, and true at the same time
Progressively you are giving more precise information
While it may be clear that eight distinct apples are simply eight apples, and that could not be more made precise, it is also true that our measure of the apples’ weight could be more precise

The number of distinct items is not really a size in the same sense as the total weight
The number of items is discrete, while the total weight is continuous
We do not create the units of discrete items, the number is self-evident, the ‘item’ is a unit of measure

However, the continuity of size implies that size it is infinitely variable
The weight is measured in units that we create (whether Imperial, US, or metric)
Besides weight and mass, other things that are continuous include distance, time, volume, colour, sound volume, and fractions of a single object

It may be added that counting discrete items also has its conceptual hazards
When we count, we round off conceptually
We round off the differences between the things we are counting
We even decide if an apple is “an apple” for our purposes, or not

No two apples are truly identical
They vary in their weight, composition, and colour, for example, even if the differences are very subtle
We decide if they are sufficiently similar to be counted or sufficiently different to not be counted
The counter decides which apples qualify

We decide exactly what it is that we are counting, and ignore differences that do not matter to us, real as they are
No matter what criteria we use we will be in some way working with continuous measures
How red is the apple? How much does it weigh? What is it’s displacement volume?

Yes, size is everything, and everything has, or is, size
Its just that we can never know what that precise size is for anything
We can only approximate

Can we ever know if we have discovered the smallest singular and indivisible entity?

Everything Is Size

by Randal Adcock

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