659
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
M. C. Tobias, J. G. Morrison, On the Nature of Ecological Paradox,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64526-7_72
Chapter 72
On the Nature of Equivalencies
72.1 A Labyrinth Beyond the Equal Sign
The equal sign having ultimately succumbed to our intuitions—we underscore the
prospect that sanity still holds sway in tender, private moments, but is lost in the
crowd—where to, then, should prudent guidance offer assistance to any philosophy
that purports to capture the essence of all that is vastly larger than ourselves?
How can human history, moments of contemporary probity and gravitas, make
any sense of such bold and unqualified sentiments as social reform, movement, or
destiny? Equality under the law at once alerts us to the shift of precision, from that
which is equal, to the more dominant notion of legal frameworks for approaching
yet other concepts, more vague by every association. The US population in 1776
was approximately 2.5 million people in 13 colonies (slaves counting for “3/5ths”
of a person—the “Three-Fifths Compromise”
1
in the first census of 1790 which
recorded a totality of 3,929,314 persons).
2
Founding documents for that frame of
reference had countless moving targets to grapple with, obviously months of furious
debates and altercations, prior to a Revolution.
Now, with over 331 million moving targets (the US human population in 2021),
and thousands of eco-regions, the many current questions of grammar and custom,
sets and sub-sets, class actions, cases specific and general; so many contemporary
objects of attention, subjects lacking confidence values; or are constants, at great
variance with the statistical, cultural, and experiential realities besetting the founders of the United States, or of any other republic. The variance factor is not simply
a matter of time, centuries. It occurs continually in physiochemistry and biology. All
1 Madison, James (1902) The Writings of James Madison, vol. 3, 1787: The Journal of the
Constitutional Convention, Part I (edited by Gaillard Hunt), p.143. Online Library of Liberty,
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/madison-the-writings-vol-3-1787, Accessed July 20, 2020.
2 United States Census, “History,” https://www.census.gov/history/www/through_the_decades/
fast_facts/1790_fast_facts.html, Accessed July 20, 2020.
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
M. C. Tobias, J. G. Morrison, On the Nature of Ecological Paradox,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64526-7_72
Chapter 72
On the Nature of Equivalencies
72.1 A Labyrinth Beyond the Equal Sign
The equal sign having ultimately succumbed to our intuitions—we underscore the
prospect that sanity still holds sway in tender, private moments, but is lost in the
crowd—where to, then, should prudent guidance offer assistance to any philosophy
that purports to capture the essence of all that is vastly larger than ourselves?
How can human history, moments of contemporary probity and gravitas, make
any sense of such bold and unqualified sentiments as social reform, movement, or
destiny? Equality under the law at once alerts us to the shift of precision, from that
which is equal, to the more dominant notion of legal frameworks for approaching
yet other concepts, more vague by every association. The US population in 1776
was approximately 2.5 million people in 13 colonies (slaves counting for “3/5ths”
of a person—the “Three-Fifths Compromise”
1
in the first census of 1790 which
recorded a totality of 3,929,314 persons).
2
Founding documents for that frame of
reference had countless moving targets to grapple with, obviously months of furious
debates and altercations, prior to a Revolution.
Now, with over 331 million moving targets (the US human population in 2021),
and thousands of eco-regions, the many current questions of grammar and custom,
sets and sub-sets, class actions, cases specific and general; so many contemporary
objects of attention, subjects lacking confidence values; or are constants, at great
variance with the statistical, cultural, and experiential realities besetting the founders of the United States, or of any other republic. The variance factor is not simply
a matter of time, centuries. It occurs continually in physiochemistry and biology. All
1 Madison, James (1902) The Writings of James Madison, vol. 3, 1787: The Journal of the
Constitutional Convention, Part I (edited by Gaillard Hunt), p.143. Online Library of Liberty,
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/madison-the-writings-vol-3-1787, Accessed July 20, 2020.
2 United States Census, “History,” https://www.census.gov/history/www/through_the_decades/
fast_facts/1790_fast_facts.html, Accessed July 20, 2020.