Opus 2024-402: Menu Math

When does 2+2 not equal four?  When you’re cooking.  Higher math can be confusing when we start talking about abstract concepts.  At the same time there are common examples that will show us why simple math does not always become simple reality.

This morning as I was preparing my oatmeal, I decided to go with honey and cinnamon.  Usually I will either go with just honey or I will go with artificial sweeteners and cinnamon.  I thought I would go with both.  I was hoping that their results would be twice as good.  In the amount that I used, it really didn’t up the ante.

There’s a certain level of enjoyment from honey.  There’s also a certain level of enjoyment from the cinnamon.  When I combined them, the enjoyment level was no higher.  I was assuming that I had two units of honey and was adding two units of cinnamon thus the results would come out as four levels of enjoyment.  In my dreams maybe.  It was still two levels. It wasn’t even three.  It was simply two.  So when I added 2+2 it did not increase in value.

I don’t know how that crosses over into physics, higher math, biology or any other discipline, but it seems pretty clear in preparing oatmeal.

So when someone tells you that 2+2 does not equal 4, they may have a reason why they’re saying that.  Of course it could be just that they are somehow off balance and trying to pull you off balance also.  It’s really up to you to make that decision.

homo unius libri