Quote Originally Posted by Mathman View Post
I agree that my first point -- it seems more exciting to see 5.8 than to see 123.62 -- does not have any rational basis. It is just how it styrikes me.
I don't think it's irrational. In the old system, you have the idea of perfection (6.0, or 10.0 in gymnastics) and the visceral thrill that the audience felt when perfection was achieved. In the CoP you just have numbers, numbers, and more numbers. I think those are existentially two utterly different systems... one is Platonic with its ideal of perfection, only skaters occasionally actually manage to reach the ideal -- how magnificent, how amazing! In the other there is (at least hypothetically) an infinite, ultimately pointless and hence dreary, increase in numerical points. "The eternal silence of these infinite spaces terrifies me." (Pascal)