[Greenbuilding] Perceptions of Nature & Reality

[Steve Satow]

If you read my messages, you will realise that I do not for one moment challenge the 'Science' merely the way in which we humans define, quantify or label it.
The speed of light is the speed of light. The amount of energy required to raise a volume of water by a certain temperature is - given identical conditions - always going to be the same. the earth always rotates at the same speed (give or take a few milliseconds). etc. etc…

But we use terms that humans have created and 'popularised' (or even 'popularized') for convenience: KW, Btu, joule, Kg, Lt, minute…
Ergo, if the vast majority of people 'choose' to define their energy usage in terms of dollars, is that not equally acceptable?

If I nip over to my neighbour and tell him that I used 1,613,824.34 Btus last month, he's going to look at me blankly and wonder 'what the F is he talking about'?. But if I tell him I used $46.34 worth of electricity, he'll understand. Which is a more effective way of communicating?

I KNOW dollars are not a technically accurate measure of energy, but they ARE functional within limits.

That's all! :)

Steve.

 
On 2013-05-25, at 2:56 PM, RT wrote:

> On Sat, 25 May 2013 14:41:26 -0400, Steve Satow <naturalbuilding at shaw.ca>
> wrote:
> 
>> I would be interested to know which units of measurement - beyond the Sidereal - are based on the observation of 'natural' events (or phenomena)? And by natural event I mean those that have not had any form of human intervention?
> 
> 
> So you're saying that all of the principles behind physics, mathematics,
> chemistry, etc would not exist if hominids didn't exist ?
> 
> ie Without our species, Pythagorus' theorem would not be true, the speed
> of light would not be "c" or the boiling point of water would not be 100 degC ?
> 
> The reality is that the difference between a  pre-hominid dinosaur's and
> 21st century scholar's perception of the natural phenomena around them is
> the level of sophistication with which they are able to understand them
> and communicate their observations accurately to their colleagues.
> 
> The dinosaur sees fire and says to his buddy "Run like hell, eh ?" to get
> away, out of simple-minded fear.
> 
> The intelligent hominid sees fire and uses his tools of math and science
> to harness it to run labour-saving devices so that he can sit back in his
> man cave and watch a hockey game on his mobile device while sipping 10
> year old distilled fermented grain slurry delivered in a bottle from half
> a world away.
> 
> === * ===
> Rob Tom					AOD257
> Kanata, Ontario, Canada
> 
> < A r c h i L o g i c  at  Y a h o o  dot  c a  >
> (manually winnow the chaff from my edress if you hit "reply")
> 
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