Sunday, June 02, 2013
Last June I was shocked to hear that the nephrectomy might
extend my life by as little as 3 months.
Wondering what’s the use, I spent the summer months doing some research
and trying to see if there was any alternative.
What I found in the literature supported everything the doctors said,
so I submitted to the recommendation.
All that you probably knew or felt. But I can't help the retrospection.
I’ve spent much time thinking about stats, how they are
mathematical creatures, and how the link from mathematics to our personal
world is either (a) non-existent or (b) made up by our selves. A simple example is that there is no
average family. There is an average of
the number of humans in real families. The
average is a mathematical operation and cannot leave that realm. It is we who apply the number and give it
significance; this is a mental/psychological/spiritual operation; it is not
mathematics. So what puzzles me is how
we apply stats to ourselves. We know the
house will always win overall, but that is statistically true, and everyone who
gambles is gambling because stats don’t apply to any real person, so gamblers
make a different meaning out of the horrible odds, and say maybe I’ll be the
exception. In the case of state lotteries the odds are one to the millions, and yet, we also know, generally, someone wins, almost every week.
When my doctor wrote that I probably had 6 to 12 months to
live, I had to face again this conundrum of stats and the real; I believe the
stats are real, and I’m quite sure that the world of mathematics can only refer to
itself; there is no mathematical escape for mathematics.
And yet we find it useful to extrapolate from the number realm and we really
do all sorts of amazing things with these numbers, including with numbers that can’t
possibly exist, such as the square root of -1, which is very important to engineers.
We are adding the magic ingredient, the application; and in this case, I
definitely did not want to allow the application. In other words, I have a choice in whether I
apply the stats to me or not.
There is a psychological aspect of this too. What is the difference between saying the
odds of having a destructive crack-up on a highway is x% and then driving a
hundred miles (on average) each day, between that-stat-and-it’s-application and
the hearing an authority say officially this stat applies to you.
What is the difference with saying, as we all can say and
defacto do say, that anyone may die anytime and so carpe diem, between that
common generality and having an
authority say this stat applies to you.
It has taken some energy on my part to accept all of this
and still to maintain that stats are stats and in this case I’m not letting
them be applied to me. I think this is
an instance of keeping the brain and the heart is separate compartments, and I
don’t just mean the skull and the chest. And of course someone will raise the Beckerian denial of death factor, but I must press on.
I don’t know if I have expressed myself well here; it is an
intellectual and emotional embroglio.
Because I know that the mathematical and logical realms are
self-contained, I know we have some freedom in the applications, and I’m sure I’m
struggling to keep my heart at least free of the statistical implication. But I can’t say I haven’t been warned. I’ve never felt more of a gambler and never
more blessed.
6/2/2013 11:22 AM
thallervale
