“The problem is that the Fed is printing too much money!” Many of us hear that, and similar statements. Those making them feel that they are saying something profound. When analyzing the degree of profundity in a statement, we may wonder, “If everyone says something, how profound can it be?”
We may reasonably explore the notion that all overly repeated theories about how the world works are automatically not profound. Such bromides may exist solely to indicate the reasoning abilities of those who tell us such theories.
“Wait just a minute!” a careful reader might say. “Billions of people frequently say something to the effect that , ‘Two and two are four.’ They are all making a true statement that is being repeated billions of times. Therefore, you are wrong to suggest that repetition of a theory automatically makes it invalid.”
A response to what seems to be a reasonable objection might be, “Two what and two what are four what?”, to which the careful reader might respond, “Two dollars and two dollars are four dollars. Two apples and two apples and two apples are four apples.”
An answer to that, “By the time you have said the second ‘two dollars’, the value of that dollar is automatically higher or lower on some exchange, somewhere, than it was when you started the sentence. So, ‘Two dollars and two dollars are four dollars.’ is never absolutely correct. As for ‘Two apples and two apples are four apples.’, as long as you can smell the apples, you know that they are losing molecules because some of them are hitting your olfactory system. If the first two apples have lost a million molecules by the time you get to ‘four apples’, they are not the same apples with which you started.”
“But,” the careful reader responds, “We could say that ‘In the abstract, two dollars and two dollars are generally within some reasonable percentage point of four dollars, barring the most drastic change in value that may, for instance, occur if a powerful earthquake causes all the buildings on Wall Street to collapse.’ We could further say that ‘Two apples and two apples’ are very close to being four apples at absolute zero, and that their changes may increase with rising temperatures, but the two apples and two apples are often approximately four apples.'”
“That’s all true.”, replies the Catholic Fundamentalist. “But, very few people say that, proving the point that if everyone thinks something to be profound, it isn’t, but that truth can be more closely approached by doing what few do, which is the fine analysis you just made.”
