The Torres Complex

I've developed a new theory, and I don't know how to get it published in the scholarly journals but I figure this blog is good enough.

The Torres Complex states: As numbers increase, be they figures or statistics, and after they reach a critical limit they become incomprehensible and lose their significance.

Example:

In your mind's eye, picture a 3 sided shape, each side having the same length.
Triangle. Easy
Try a 4 sided.
Square.
5 sided?
Pentagon.
6 sides?
Hexagon.
7 sides?
Now it gets a little fuzzy.
8 sided?
Easy again. Octagon.
9 sided?
Can't do it.

At some point, the number of sides increases to the point where we can't imagine a continuous shape. If we increase drastically to 20 sides, we can't help but try to imagine a circle with strait sides. Does this look any different than a 50 sided shape? We have reached the critical mass where we can't comprehend a figure larger. The number of sides beyond a small amount become irrelevant.

Let's apply this to our own universe. The Sun is about 1.3 million times as large as the Earth. That figure alone is astounding. Now take into account that there is a star, Antares, that is over 500 million times the size of the Sun. Really. So now it doesn't matter how much bigger the Sun is than the Earth, this detail now seems irrelevant. The universe is infinitely beyond our critical mass of understudying.

Let's find a more practical example. In 2008, The Environmental Protection Agency estimated that Americans produce 1.35 billion pounds of garbage. That sounds like a lot. But what does that number mean? I have no doubt that we produce immense amounts of waste, but I have trouble comprehending such a large figure. It so overwhelming, that it becomes irrelevant. How do I fit into that 1.35 billion pounds? How is what I do, have any impact on such an amount? And they wonder why we don't care about the environment...

The Torres Complex
Pass it on.