The immeasurable is difficult or impossible to measure.
Immeasurable is a term that has its origin in the Latin word immensurabilis . This adjective refers to that which is very difficult to measure or that cannot be measured .
For example: “The immeasurable ocean overwhelmed him,” “I feel immeasurable sadness since your departure,” “The wealth of some oil magnates is immeasurable.”
Concept of immeasurable
The concept of immeasurable, therefore, can be linked to things that, due to their size or other characteristics, are almost impossible to measure. This is not a concrete impossibility, but rather a practical one. The sea , in this sense, is immeasurable: in theory , it is possible to determine how much water it contains and express said amount in liters or another equivalent unit. However, developing such a measurement is virtually impossible due to technical difficulties.
Something similar can be expressed regarding the number of hairs that a human being has. Although it is possible to count them, given that their number is finite and that they are large enough to be manipulated by our hands and visualized by our eyes, it could be a truly complicated task, unless we have the appropriate means. Science has determined that our scalp houses between 100 and 150 million hairs, which shows that not everyone could reach that number at home, in front of the mirror.
Hair is immeasurable: it is impracticable to count each hair.
Impossibility of quantification
Other things, however, are immeasurable since there is no possibility of quantifying them . Just as the sea or a head of hair are ideally measurable, the same cannot be said of feelings , emotions or abstract concepts. Happiness is immeasurable since we can only consider certain symptoms that are a reflection of it, but we cannot access happiness itself to measure or count it. The soul , the spirit , faith , love and hate are also immeasurable.
In this sense, it is possible to say that the most important things in life cannot be measured or quantified; It is common to hear that "money is not everything" or that "money does not make happiness" , and these expressions do nothing other than highlight the importance of happiness, love, friendship, trust, immeasurable. Opposed to this way of thinking is materialism.
The immeasurable and the material
Although the academic definition of materialism speaks of a philosophical current that opposes idealism regarding the importance of thought and consciousness instead of matter, placing it as the origin of the former, popular language refers to this term to describe the attitude of someone who values material goods more than feelings and relationships with other living beings.
The relative nature of the immeasurable demonstrates that human wisdom is changeable, modified as we evolve, question ourselves and doubt our convictions, no matter how deeply rooted they are in our cultures . Just as certain diseases seemed incurable centuries ago and today they have been eradicated or can be treated and overcome without any complications, science allows us to observe and study microscopic organisms, which would have been unthinkable in the not-so-distant past.
In other words, when using the term immeasurable we must accept that this assessment may not be valid in the future, without this meaning that it is valid in the present. It is one of the features of our way of understanding life, of our constant need to analyze our environment to discover the secrets it hides . Despite knowing that certain investigations have taken decades, we refuse to put certain phenomena aside until we are able to understand them, and we rush to qualify them with the tools we have at our disposal.