I recently read that Aristotle taught the golden mean (moderation in all things) in the Nicomachaen Ethics. Interestingly, the golden mean is another name for the golden ratio, the number phi (about 0.618), which turns out to be quite important in nature and other areas.
As to phi, I believe such things as the ratio of the length of the lower arm to that of the whole arm is about 0.618 (phi). There are lots of other similar statistics.
This got me to thinking. I don' think that Aristotle meant that one should necessarily aim to always take the path at the exact midpoint, but rather something somewhere in the middle area. Maybe considering a postion just off the midpoint, say based on phi would be about right. Taking the exact average all the time seems like a mere cop out and a function of how extreme the endpoints are relative to each other.
OK, I'll admit that there are still some bugs to work out on this concept, but there seems to be something here. I will keep you posted.
1 comment:
That's exactly what Aristotle meant. A decision is almost never the exact midpoint. But each choice should be made within context of the situation, and as long as it's NOT one of the extremes, than it applies to the golden mean. More often than not, it will never be the exact midpoint.
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