The Importance of What We Cannot Measure
A snippet from yesterday's conversation with Prof. John Ikerd.
Later on, I’ll post to YouTube yesterday’s conversation with Professor Ikerd, but in the meantime, I want to share with you one of the idea’s the inspired me most.
Professor Ikerd made a distinction between economic activity (employment rate, worker productivity rate, GDP growth, monetary profit) and that which cannot be measured, such as how much happiness or feeling of interconnectedness we receive from our social interactions and the sense of purpose we sense by acting in accordance with our moral compass — with courage, that is.
It is much easier to quantify and express in concrete terms economic transactions and activity because there are quantifiable units associated with these. But on the other hand, it is difficult to express degrees, intensities, and the effectiveness of social interactions and life path.
We do not have units to express happiness, nor have we developed a quantifiable scale that is universally recognized to talk about our sense of interconnectedness or satisfaction in life. This language remains a personal art form, ultimately more abstract and can even be challenging to parse out for even ourselves to understand.
Economics has a mathematical language which is efficient to communicate activity regarding monetary aspects. The clarity of this economic language can often override the importance of other aspects of life which are not as concrete, such as our emotional and metaphysical world — highly essential for a beautiful human experience.
