The topic discussed here is one aspect of the pyramidal structure of data: it is implicit in it, and this page exists solely to highlight the importance of this aspect.
When one or more phenomena are on a very large scale, their sheer scale tends to overwhelm us: it confuses and disorients us. Well, that is precisely the moment to bear in mind that those phenomena are merely consequences. They are effects with causes, and those causes are their foundations.
It goes without saying that the importance of phenomena is proportional to their scale: a puddle is one thing, a river bursting its banks is quite another. And the importance of not being overwhelmed by phenomena is proportional to their scale. Therefore, the importance of bearing in mind that they are merely consequences of their foundations is also proportional to their scale.
And here's the point: our ability to bear this in mind is hampered by the apparent ration between fundamentals and consequences.
One of our shortcomings is that we allow ourselves to be misled by quantity: we regard things as important in proportion to their "volume".
Whilst the phenomena that overwhelm us are of immense magnitude, the fundamentals are so simple as to be almost invisible to the naked eye.
And so, if we judge by "volume", the phenomena appear to us to have a very high volume, and the fundamentals have a volume so close to zero that we do not notice them, or, if we do notice them, we ignore them.
It’s a pity that resolving issues necessarily involves addressing their causes – the foundations – and that resolving them begins with being aware of them.
