In the beginning of the 20th century, physicists discovered that measurement was not only a means to quantify things, but something intrinsic to the definition of reality itself. In Newtonian mechanics, objects were defined by their precise location in space and time and had a precise velocity attached to them. But this description of reality is no longer true from the point of view of quantum mechanics. In this new view of the world, all objects merely have a wave-function associated with them. And unless an act of measurement is made, things like precise location and velocity no longer have any meaning for objects. So, an act of measurement is now not only to know the position and velocity of an object, but also to impart these things to the object itself. Unless this measurement is made, the object itself has no precise location or velocity. It could be anywhere and have any velocity (with certain probabilities, of course)!
The modern age also has experienced a surge in the importance of measurement from another perspective. With the emergence of big organizations and multi-national companies, the importance of measurement has grown by leaps and bounds. Starting from profits to projections for the next quarter, from employee value to CEO compensation, and everything else is being measured on a scale. Everything is beginning to get quantified. There is an obsession with objective reality that is growing with every single day.
If we imagine the world to be an ocean and various phenomenon as waves, then every trough must have a crest associated with it. We can see this in the context of measurement too. In physics, with the emergence of chaos, it is beginning to be realized that no matter how precisely we measure natural phenomenon, in many systems (those that are chaotic) we will run out of accuracy very soon. A system is considered to be chaotic if two initial conditions, that were close by, diverge from each other exponentially fast with time. In non-chaotic systems, this divergence is much slower and mostly linear, which helps in keeping track of measurements to a very high degree of accuracy for very long times.
In the case of organizations, the world has seen the emergence of open-source software and non-profit organizations like Wikipedia. In these systems, there are no measurable rewards, no measurable future projections, no measurable employee evaluation and no measurable CEO compensation. People from all over the world pool in their time and energy to make these things work, and do not expect any tangible returns for themselves. One could probably call this the modern form of Karma Yoga, the ancient Indian philosophy of doing unselfish work for the sake of others.
In this case, what holds true for the world holds true for individuals too. In the life of an individual, certain things are measurable and certain things are not. One could measure the person's salary, but not the utility that results. One could measure the number of material objects a person possesses, but not the happiness that is derived out of them. One could measure the number of relatives a person has, but not the warmth in those relationships. The important thing in life is probably to know what can be measured and what cannot be. That which can be measured will always be finite. But that which cannot be measured has the potential to be infinite. I guess the idea of a good life is to hold on to that which is finite, and then make an attempt at pursuing the infinite. And as one approaches closer and closer to the infinite, that which is finite will appear to be smaller and smaller till it dissolves into nothingness. I wonder if this is what is known as salvation!
The modern age also has experienced a surge in the importance of measurement from another perspective. With the emergence of big organizations and multi-national companies, the importance of measurement has grown by leaps and bounds. Starting from profits to projections for the next quarter, from employee value to CEO compensation, and everything else is being measured on a scale. Everything is beginning to get quantified. There is an obsession with objective reality that is growing with every single day.
If we imagine the world to be an ocean and various phenomenon as waves, then every trough must have a crest associated with it. We can see this in the context of measurement too. In physics, with the emergence of chaos, it is beginning to be realized that no matter how precisely we measure natural phenomenon, in many systems (those that are chaotic) we will run out of accuracy very soon. A system is considered to be chaotic if two initial conditions, that were close by, diverge from each other exponentially fast with time. In non-chaotic systems, this divergence is much slower and mostly linear, which helps in keeping track of measurements to a very high degree of accuracy for very long times.
In the case of organizations, the world has seen the emergence of open-source software and non-profit organizations like Wikipedia. In these systems, there are no measurable rewards, no measurable future projections, no measurable employee evaluation and no measurable CEO compensation. People from all over the world pool in their time and energy to make these things work, and do not expect any tangible returns for themselves. One could probably call this the modern form of Karma Yoga, the ancient Indian philosophy of doing unselfish work for the sake of others.
In this case, what holds true for the world holds true for individuals too. In the life of an individual, certain things are measurable and certain things are not. One could measure the person's salary, but not the utility that results. One could measure the number of material objects a person possesses, but not the happiness that is derived out of them. One could measure the number of relatives a person has, but not the warmth in those relationships. The important thing in life is probably to know what can be measured and what cannot be. That which can be measured will always be finite. But that which cannot be measured has the potential to be infinite. I guess the idea of a good life is to hold on to that which is finite, and then make an attempt at pursuing the infinite. And as one approaches closer and closer to the infinite, that which is finite will appear to be smaller and smaller till it dissolves into nothingness. I wonder if this is what is known as salvation!
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