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Moths

Posted on 26/06/2011 by admin

Last night I caught a moth to put outside and until it flapped its wings I didn’t know for sure I was holding it. It is strange to have the sensation that I was holding something without feeling I was touching it. I know the senses have their limits and can be fooled but I realise  more fully now how reason has to fill in the gaps in the senses.

This doesn’t make reason a sense and probably only makes senses more accurate to a degree but it certainly plays a part, yet reason has to be educated, there is nothing automatic about how it works. Reason tells us the ground as far as we can see it is flat and no matter how far we walk the sensation of curving is never one we feel. I was recently talking to someone who thought the wind hit wind farm turbine blades and moved on and did not realise the energy was taken out of the wind where it hit the blades and at that moment to all intents and purposes at that specific point, turned into a small breeze.

Just as the senses need reason to fill in the gaps,  so reason needs knowledge to hone its ability to make decisions and draw conclusions. Throw away any knowledge and the world may just as well be flat.

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Children’s author, novelist, editor and poet.

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