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To: Maurice Winn who wrote (28365)	2/2/2003 7:25:42 PM
From: LLCF	Respond to of 74559

<One of the most important things is trust. > Trust is simply the absence of fear or anxiety. Anxiety is simply the gap between what IS and what you THINK it should be. DAK

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (28365)	2/2/2003 10:29:11 PM
From: Stock Farmer	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74559

Yes Mq, there are many things on which we agree. Trust is one of them. The median human hour? Not yet. The problem isn't in the lack of definition (I am sure that it is measurable on some yardstick). But on the degree to which two humans would agree on application of the measure. Perhaps you and me. How do we measure a median human? Do hair color skin texture come into the picture? What about phlegm and tooth decay - do these factor in, and to what degree? How do short people measure up against tall? The skinny against the obese? Those with "normal" limbs versus those with fewer or more... And if all genetic material were identical, what about the thoughts which trip along the hallways of the mind... unspoken... do they count too? And if so, how do we measure them? And how would Einstein measure up against Ghengis Khan? Or a boy of 18 compare to himself three minutes later? So perhaps for some finite duration, you and I could sit together (or on opposite sides of this monitor for that matter) and agree. But then to add a third, and a fourth... and so on. Quite hard for us to agree. You see, I think we would have to come up with some immutable objective quanta of measurement. And agree amongst our changing selves that this will not change. Like that brass meter-long rod in the basement of some building in France. Or like a vapor of cesium atoms, ticking away in a vacuum somewhere. Reasonably tractable, and verifiable by all who care to come in and calibrate their medianness. And have a convenient proxy available to all of us with which to tokenize the measurement. One which doesn't change so often in relation to the "true" value that it can not be reasonably calibrated. Having established that we ourselves, although human and indeed because of our essential humanity, hardly qualify. Maybe it would be something abstract. Ones and zeros such as you suggest. Or maybe gold. Or something in between. But we would need something in which enough of us could place our trust. Which leads us back to trust. Which I have a hard time imagining being denominated in ones and zeros. Or goats and chickens for that matter. Even in gold. Although the chemical properties of gold lend me to trust it, (versus It) to remain true to itself nigh on forever. Which immutable trust is something rare indeed. Shall I trust in the value of Q as you have suggested in the past? Oooh... that is trusting that the widgets and gadgets and products and uses over which the daily struggle of enterprise is waged will not permute themselves. Yikes. Shall I trust in It when I suspect (see, I hardly even trust myself) that despite all good intentions to the opposite, It will end up serving the enlightened self interest of The Select Few. Without regard for me? I trust my dog. Although I chain him 'cause otherwise I trust him to try and chew his way into the house from the outside. I trust my son. But I still ask him whether or not he has brushed his teeth, because I trust that the last thing on the mind of a boy his age is personal hygene. I trust in the laws of physics. Like that what goes up must come down. Although I ponder how the thing that goes up knows where down is, even when down moves. So while I get the concept of trust, it seems to me that the verb is one of those that requires a transitive completion: the cross product of 'whom' and 'about what'. Maybe, for example, some tribe whose living depended on fishing the Atlantic might have written on their medium of exchange: "In Cod we trust". Maybe the folks who wrote "In God we trust" were not describing trust so much as defining God? Or maybe they just accidentally left out the "L". Dunno. But I agree with you, trust is the important thing. Once we get the whom and about what part settled, we'll have defined the perfect medium of exchange. Until then, we need something that in and of itself is immutable, and which is trusted by the majority of those in whom you place your trust (transitively). Given a choice between chickens, peas, goats, gold and planetary enterprise... gold comes closer than most other things in imperfectly fitting the mold. John