The Uncertainty Principle

In 'The Uncertainty Principle", Jeff Einstein gives a case for following the media revolution to the next level through imagination and emotion rather that reason and logic. I reach that view by agreeing that technology in and of itself takes us no more closer to the truth than mankind understanding the meaning of life and the purpose of man.

What struck me was the use of the phrase 'the uncertainty principle', which if my memory serves me correctly, you can Wikipedia it if you'd like, postulates that the more one measures one variable in a conjugate pair , the less one knows about the other - or in lay terms, the act of observing position impacts the measurement - the observer effect. The act of putting ads in programming, or on a webpage, changes the nature of the medium. Measuring it in realtime, beyond an estimate, only leads to us to analysis that reminds me of the paradox of Zeno's arrow.

When we discuss C3 ratings or whether the web is more effective than linear traditional media media (Question : Which is more like the web : a newspaper or a tv program? Why ? Discuss), what we are asking is "Can I correlate my messaging activity with a purchase/behavior?" and then can I repeat that pattern. Did I already have the intent to buy, or did I decide to make a purchase because the salesperson asked , "May I help you?"... and by trying to find out the answer we have shifted the balance further away from the very knowledge that we are trying to attain.

Once we saw that the purchase of a virtual product stimulates the same same pleasure center in the brain as buying the real thing, I thought marketers would be beating a path to the virtual worlds to understand exactly why people buy one brand over another ... but maybe they don't really want to know. "In all they getting, gt thee knowledge."