Like dreams, statistics are a form of wish fulfillment.

The words of Jean Baudrillard, philosopher of illusions and prophet of modern reality, strike with both irony and wisdom: “Like dreams, statistics are a form of wish fulfillment.” At first glance, it seems a jest — a mocking of the numbers that rule our world. But beneath the jest lies a revelation: that even in our pursuit of objectivity, humanity cannot escape desire. For both the dream and the statistic, though dressed in different robes, serve the same master — the yearning heart that wishes to make sense of chaos, to give comfort through order, to make the uncertain appear measurable.

Baudrillard, who lived amidst the rise of data and media, saw the world drowning in information yet starving for truth. He watched societies worship numbers as oracles — polls, charts, percentages — believing they could reveal the soul of nations. But he understood that statistics, like dreams, are mirrors more than windows; they do not simply reflect the world as it is, but as we wish it to be. When we count, we seek reassurance. When we calculate, we imagine control. Thus, in the ancient struggle between chaos and meaning, statistics become the modern man’s dream — a fantasy of order in a boundless sea of uncertainty.

In ancient times, men sought meaning in omens and stars; today, we seek it in data. The augurs of Rome read the flight of birds to predict the fate of battles; now, analysts read charts and algorithms to foresee the movements of markets or the moods of crowds. Yet the impulse is the same — to make the unpredictable predictable, to draw comfort from patterns. Baudrillard, ever the skeptic, warns us that this too is wish fulfillment. For we often shape statistics not to discover truth, but to confirm belief. We choose the numbers that favor our desires, and call them “facts.” Thus, even in our age of science, the dreamer within us survives — clothed not in myth, but in mathematics.

Consider the example of economic forecasting, that modern oracle of nations. Before the great financial crisis of 2008, the world’s brightest minds assured us — through their models, their graphs, their “objective” numbers — that stability reigned. Their statistics told a story of infinite growth and safety. Yet when the storm came, their calculations shattered like glass. Why? Because those numbers were not truth — they were dreams made credible by intellect, wish fulfillments clothed in the authority of science. The dream was of a world that could not fall; the reality was that it already had.

Baudrillard’s insight reaches deeper still. In his philosophy, even reality itself becomes a kind of simulation — a collective dream that we agree to believe. In this way, statistics are not the cure for illusion; they are its continuation. They give form to our hopes — that progress is endless, that success can be measured, that human nature can be quantified. And yet, as dreams do, they also betray us. For behind every graph stands the hand that drew it; behind every number, a desire. Thus, the wise must learn to see not only the surface of the numbers, but the longing they conceal.

The lesson in Baudrillard’s words is not to reject statistics, but to awaken within them. Use numbers as tools, not idols. Let them inform you, but not deceive you. Ask always: What is being wished for here? What dream is this number serving? For in recognizing the dream within the data, you reclaim your power to see clearly. The ancient philosophers warned that the greatest danger to truth is not ignorance, but self-deception — the belief that we already know. In our age, that deception often wears the face of certainty, adorned in the authority of numbers.

So, O seeker of wisdom, remember this: truth cannot be reduced to digits, nor dreams confined to data. The world is not a formula to be solved, but a mystery to be understood. Let your mind measure, but let your heart question. Seek not to escape uncertainty with false precision, but to dwell within it with courage and humility. For when you see that even your numbers dream, you begin to see yourself more clearly — as both the dreamer and the dreamed, forever longing to turn the unknowable into light. And that is the beginning of wisdom.