The baby and the bathwater...

[fajrdrako]

If the temperature in the bathtub is raised only one degree every ten minutes, how does the bather know when to start screaming? - Marshall McLuhan, 1911 - 1980

When it starts to hurt, of course. This is one of those statements which - it seems to me - confuses the theory of an event with the experience of an event. We don't scream because water burns us at a certain temperature, we scream because it hurts. Doesn't matter what the temperature is. Pain is pain.

Reality does not depend on our knowledge or understanding of it.

Comments

[dewline.livejournal.com]

A good answer.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

There's another angle on it, too: that we can acclimatize ourself to discomfort, living with pain for so long that we learn to (or try to) ignore or deny it. But that isn't good to us: most people break under the strain. Because the temperature, and the bearability of the sensation, aren't really under our control.

And it doesn't change the temperature of the water.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

No, it doesn't. Never does.