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Discussion on: Categorical thinking

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stereobooster profile image
stereobooster

Some choice of categories doesn't matter. For example, we chose base 10 numbers, because we have 10 fingers, we chose the value of 1 kg based on the fact that this is how much 1000 cubic centimeters of water weights in normal circumstances. And if we would choose a bit different measurements here nothing would basically change. Those are relative thins and it's ok.

Some choices are dictated because the information itself is discrete and applying discrete categories to discrete ideas is ok (I guess). For example, we have odd and even number and those two buckets perfectly describe all natural numbers without problems.

Problems with categories begin when you want to describe continuous information. You chose some categories, but later you forgot that essentially you are dealing with continuous information, not a discrete one.

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swfisher profile image
Sam Fisher • Edited

Yep, apart from the idea that those choices of unit have “nice properties” and so they do matter. Units also seem to not strictly be categories because it’s easy and natural to have a decimal and fractional # of units for something. This counteracts the danger in the “opaqueness” of thinking in discrete categories over continuous information.

There’s this other weirder problem, which is “how do you decide which dimensions or axes the information is varying over?” For example, if OOP and FP are two points that live in some continuous space, how do we choose axes to place those things on?

So not only do we not know how to make meaningful categories, we don’t know how to describe the continuous space in which we’re making a choice.

In fact, the idea of a one or many dimensional continuum to describe this is just as much an imperfect construct as the categorical distinctions we made within that continuum.