Measurement Is Relative

By Leo Gura - June 5, 2025

If you watch the following video through to the end, in the second half, you will have a profound epiphany about the relativity of size and measurement.

This requires some patience because this is not a pure philosophy video.

Ordinarily, we speak and think of physical objects as having a certain objective size — the hard stuff that science simply measures and reports. But upon a deep epistemic and metaphysical inquiry you realize that there is no such thing as “an object” with fixed objective dimensions. It is impossible to know any object’s dimensions for profound reasons, not just epistemic but also ontological. How do you know how long an object is? Only by comparing it to another object (your ruler). But you never know the dimension of any object, including your ruler. The length of all objects depends on: 1) it’s temperature, 2) the accuracy of your ruler, 3) the material of your ruler, 4) the temperature of your ruler, 5) the velocity of the object, 6) the velocity of your ruler, 7) your mind’s definition of the object, and more!

For example, look at how clever this gets: How long is an elephant? What is the correct “scientific” answer? Do you unfurl its trunk and tail when you measure it? How far do you unfurl them? Do you stretch them or not? How much is the correct amount to stretch them? How do you calculate how much you stretched them when you unfurled them? Which unfurling method did you use? At what temperature are you measure it? At higher temperatures the elephant’s tissues will be more flexible and stretchy. Do you measure the elephant in the morning or evening? A elephant in the evening may be longer because it stretched out more throughout the day. Do you include the hairs on the tip of its nose and tail? What if those hairs fall out just before you measure it? What if a new hair grows right after you measure it? Do you count that one dead hair that has half-detached from the elephant’s skin and is only holding on to the elephant with dirt and oil? Do you count the dirt coating the hair? Is the elephant stationary or running? What velocity is the elephant moving at? The faster the elephant’s velocity the shorter its length. Is the elephant in a strong gravitational field that’s pulling it apart? What does it mean to say that an elephant is X.XXXXX meters long? How long does that truth last? When does it stop being true? All of this has massive implications for science and engineering.

You might think this is merely a problem of lack of accuracy, but it’s deeper than that. The problem is ontological. What even is an object? What counts as an object? We ordinarily assume that an object like a steel bar just exists and has certain properties, but this assumes many things. A steel bar at room temperature is a solid object, but the same steel bar at 10,000 degrees is an amorphous cloud of iron plasma. So where does the iron bar end and the Earth begin? An iron bar is always shedding particles. An iron bar is never pure, covered in oil, dust, dirt, vapor. Does that count as part of the bar? How long is a cloud of iron plasma? Is it one cloud or two clouds? Science cannot solve this problem just by doing more measurement or more lab experiments. How many clouds are there in the sky today? Science cannot tell you the answer. Not just because it’s hard to count them but because there literally is no such thing as “a cloud” without your perspective of it. You are needed to define “That is a cloud, this is not a cloud. That is one cloud, this is two clouds”. And this problem isn’t just a macro-scale phenomena that can be solved by zooming all the way down to the atomic scale, because at the sub-atomic scale you can’t even say what an electron is, where an electron is, how fast it is. Electrons are not the simple, discrete, crisp things your mind assumes they are. Sub-atomic particles morph into various other sub-atomic particles within nanoseconds, faster than you can measure them.

What scientists don’t understand is that to even call something “an iron bar” is already to assume too much! What is the difference between an iron bar and a kangaroo? You think these are crisp, distinct objects. But if you became as conscious as me you would realize that the difference between an iron bar and kangaroo is just relative and imaginary.

The problem of measurement, definition, knowledge, and identity is so ontologically profound that not only is it impossible to measure anything, it is impossible to say that an iron bar is different from a kangaroo! This is what science doesn’t understand. My goal in this work is to guide you to such a profound comprehension of reality that one day you realize that the difference between an iron bar and a kangaroo is imaginary. Which is to realize the Unity of all things. Which is to realize Love. LOVE means that you stop distinguishing an iron bar from a kangaroo.

Humans assume that you can just say, That’s an iron bar, and That’s a kangaroo. But the ontology of reality is so profound that you can’t say that! To say that requires making many, many over-simplifications and assumptions, and to engage in all sorts of gross biases. Reality requires that the difference between an iron bar and kangaroo be imaginary, a relative illusion held inside a Mind.

This is the difference between materialism and idealism. Materialism isn’t capable of understanding reality in such an advanced, fluid, abstract, and relativistic way. Because materialism requires distinctions to be objectively real. And that hampers science because it hampers the mind. Don’t forget that all of science is just a product of the mind. If your mind isn’t fluid enough to understand reality then your mind will be bad at fundamental science.

Note: Adam Savage is a beautiful human. Model his passion for work. Become as passionate about your work as he is in his.

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