Categories and frameworks

Categories and Frameworks

Lately, I’ve been fascinated by perception. How one output in the world can be interpreted an infinite number of ways to mean different things. Do you remember the Yanny/ Laurel debate, or Brainstorm and Green needle, or how about the blue and gold dress? (Links below the puppy) Even the choices provided are an example of a framework of categories to choose from.

What’s objectively occurring in the world, the sound waves or light waves, doesn’t really matter when we all focus on OUR interpretation.

The framework we use for understanding the world around us must clearly shape the understanding itself. There’s a reason we choose to prioritize lists of 3 or start from left to right, up to down, alphabetical order.

For most of us, we go through our days using hundreds or thousands of invisible heuristics that we take for granted. We’re not even aware we use them.

The Indian numbering system

Another surprising fact I came across not too long ago was the Indian numbering system. I had known that numbering systems were not consistent around the world. The use of commas between 3 digits is common in North America, while in some places in Europe that convention is flipped and periods are used in place of commas while commas are used in place of periods.

In India, there is the numerical notion of Lakh which looks like 1,00,000 or one-hundred thousand.

Quite peculiar to the North American brain.

And if we keep going the next number of distinction is the Crore and that looks like 1,00,00,000 or ten million.

Why we obsess over being a Millionaire?

In American culture the concept of being a “millionaire” is deeply rooted in the notion of success. Like some magical thing happens when the second comma comes into play or the 7th figure is used, or when you have 6 zeros following a number. When we zoom out and recognize that there are many different types of frameworks and ways of categorizing our understanding of EVERYTHING. Our ways of marking success seem so arbitrary.

Here’s a test heuristic using a frame that I’ve selected:

“A is for…”

I’m trying out polls here, so actually click the correct answer above. Please and thank you.

Appendix:

👀 The dress: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dress

Yanny or Laurel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDiXQl7grPQ

Brainstorm or Green Needle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXxV2C1ri2k