-nathan zed, how perfection died
my probability professor once asked the class: “what's the difference between mathematics and statistics?” and nobody really had a very satisfactory answer. to answer his own question, he had to say, “statistics accounts for error.” i don't remember where, but i recollect hearing: “statistics cannot eliminate error, but something very important it does is tell you exactly how much error there can be.”
there's something about imperfection that's endearing. as much as i love a perfect system, and there are absolutely areas where i adore perfection, it's simply a thing that can't exist everywhere. if you know me, you know that i love numbers. one of my favourite quotes is if you can stand back far enough to see the big picture, everything is numbers.
and despite, i've been thinking about this for a while, especially with the generative debacle, i end up wondering which things aren't.
it's always confusing and scary how things just might not be perfect. what if i do something that has errors? and maybe it does, but that's me. maybe i've got a certain lexical quirk that you've noticed about me that i don't know about. i've found myself being confused about ‘personality’; what is it? do i even have one? and as i lean into the eccentricities that i possess that don't necessarily make me worse, or better, they just are, i can realise: this is me.