---
layout: post
title: Rounding to zero in human subjects
date: 2019-06-04 16:52:43
categories: misc
---

Operating exact "real" (or *at least* computable) numbers is hard, even for
exact machines. For humans rational and big integer numbers already present a
problem. Perhaps most noticeable is this when they encounter "small" numbers
"around zero".

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What they tend to do in this case is commonly known as "rounding" and rounding
towards zero is, of course, unforgivable when dealing with multiplication and
inversion (with addition and negation it's not as important), but the human mind
seems to much prefer additive operations and think low of something as
complicated as multiplication.

This rounding error is not merely a computational issue. In fact, it seems to be
at least one of the cases for certain philosophical systems, which author of
this post is not very happy about. Lets see how that may be happening.

First of all, we must of course assume world of big numbers, but human world
have been that for quite a while, and the few communication and transportation
revolutions we've seen in the last centuries make this even more obvious, even
for people who would otherwise ignore the question altogether. These days it is
hard to be unaware of existence of billions other humans, and the small brain
that human posses can hardly imagine even a thousand. But of course, to people
who cared to think about the world, even lower numbers in previous centuries
would still be high enough.

High enough for what exactly, one might ask? For example, to compare oneself
(or, perhaps, any single human) to this mass called "humanity". If you divide
one by a billion, you get.. one billionth, of course. But when you round this
number to zero, you come to conclusion that one single human has zero
significance. Funny contradiction arises when you then multiply it by billion
back: you suddenly get zero. 1 = 0. A good starting point to begin doubting
logic and start believing in something different, which can make it all come to
terms.

In particular, one possible idea is to say that there's some "higher force"
which is present in human masses, despite utter lack of its parts in any one
human in particular. And wasn't that, in a way, a prelude to the catastrophes of
XX century?..

But as i mentioned earlier, this rounding error does not affect philosophy
only. Very mundane everyday fatalism might be explained by it. One person is
zero, their actions are insignificant, irrelevant. One more piece of trash, one
more fire, one more car burning gasoline will not be cause of ecological
problems. One more vote, one more active citizen will not make a political
difference. Even: one more stealing, one more kill will change nothing. Right?

And yet again, on a less philosophical level, humans tend to want to believe in
something that would explain contradiction. In perhaps saddest (for themselves)
case, believe in nihil, make this zero rounding error a grand postulate and a
staple of the world.

Oh, and by the way: when i say "believe", i don't mean necessarily beliefs in
some "higher" powers or entities. One can believe in a group of people, for
example: "yes, one human is zero, but together we are..."

But lets leave that one for another study. I think this post is already full of
not-so-fresh ideas, written in a pretentious and hopefully fun manner. Adieu.
