Observation: How, What and Why

Abstract

We can now measure picograms of a pure molecular species, and lightyears of nearly empty space. Will we eventually be able to measure everything, and will we then understand it all? Or nothing? Could it be that numbers will prove themselves symbols, not of precision, but of our blind senses and mind? I believe there are properties in both the living observer and the life observed, that we must face and focus on, before we try to focus on the perhaps less real world of numbers beyond. I believe some properties within ourselves may be unavoidable obstacles: our tendency of thinking along lines, of homogenization, circularity and perspectivation are products of the life processes we observe with. The specific functionalities of shaped or patterned interfaces, and of amplification or image intensification in real life, on the other hand, are products of the same processes rendering measurement doubly difficult.