The objective craze

Ok, maybe this is totally crazy, but I think that we are all slaves of objectivity in one sense or the other. Oh, and I  also believe that subjective is NOT the "opposite" of objective - merely the absence of one does not mean the other. Now what does objective mean? In layman's terms, it refers to being able to put a value to or measure or assess something  in concrete terms and will take the same value irrespective of who is estimating (the extent of)  it. In philosophical terms, it is mind-independent.

Well all this is fine (the scientific method and all), but I have begun to believe that we need numbers (the most popular manifestation of objectivity) to believe something. To give an example, "hot" does not  really mean anything without how hot. The same applies to almost all things - global warming, traffic, wildlife, light, sound, colors  intelligence, emotions (EQ and what not), even success - and we have defined indicators to measure processes like evolution - hey, we even have a Happiness Index now :) We are well on our way to putting a value on most things.

Some things are however left untouched fortunately - for instance, we still believe that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder - we havent yet formed a standard for how beautiful something or someone is. But we're slowly getting there, even though its fragmented by tastes (stuff like the stupid "fairness meter" that we see these days).

I am not sure what the dangers are in this system of thought, since we live by and take most decisions by it. We do know and acknowledge that the world is not ruled by numbers in all cases - the simplest example being that often simple geometry can capture things that numbers cannot. 

The point I am making is not about numbers actually. It is about neatly classifying everything into boxes and gradients. Thinking "out of the box" also ends up being back in some other box, since its only about box within boxes :)