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

[jkluge.livejournal.com]

Also, at one degree every ten minutes, wouldn't the temperature of the water also decrease in that ten minutes, by at least a degree or more?

Granted, with the time frame involved (and assuming their is no loss of heat in those ten-minute intervals), it might take longer for discomfort to be felt, since the body might adjust beyond what is good for a person...but, as you say, *not* past the point of pain.

[gypsylady.livejournal.com]

I had the same thought. And if it raises by one degree from where it was when the bath started, that'll be a noticeable increase as a result.

As a metaphor, this one smells really bad. Which, as metaphors go, sucks by its own self...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yup, I agree. We need metaphors that really make sense!