4. Space, scale, size, amount, number

One of the ways that people think is to consider things as they exist in space: diagrams, pictures, blueprints, maps, paintings, drawings, sculpture are all considerations of reality based on an understanding of space and spatial relationships.

The concept of space helps us with our orientation (point of view, perspective). It is always useful for humans to know where we are, where we started, where we are going, etc. We find this both comforting and useful: the knowledge allows us to locate ourselves spatially: we are home, we are at work, we are in church, we are in the neighborhood, in the city, in the country, at the ball park, etc. Many of our critical thinking clues are based on our spatial orientation.

All things that exist have the spatial qualities of size and shape. How big or small something is, how many of something there are, all help to determine how we think about things. (see also spectrum)

For example: the value we place on things.

Let us say that you have a collection of 20 special pens. They are all important to you.

Compare this with your friend's collections of pens. He has one pen.

If you were to lose one pen from your collection, it would be bad, but you would still have 19 pens left (95%) of your collection. However, if your friend lost one pen, he or she would lose their entire collection, and would have none left (0%).

Is your friend's one pen worth more to your friend than any one pen is worth to you?

Or, consider that you have one razor to shave with. You will care for it, clean it, sharpen it, use it only for shaving; in general, you will respect it for its value as the only tool for shaving.

But, consider a situation where you have disposable razors. You will use it and then throw it away. Will you clean it, sharpen it, care for it, respect it? Certainly not in the same way.

The mere fact that there are many razors makes each one less important. The quantity of items has changed the quality of our evaluation of them. The lesson here is that a quantitative change, if large enough, can result in a qualitative change as well. (This was a key insight of the German philosopher Hegel).