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===== Original Message From Forum for Physics Educators<PHYS-L@list1.ucc.nau.edu> =====
On the other hand it is not all that difficult:
If someone in a dark alley in Birmingham -- I assume that there are in fact
dark alleys if Birmingham -- approaches you and zonks you over the head
with a bat, you could reasonably be expected to admit that the pain is real
-- that the damage to your brain is real -- that the loss of your wallet
and gold watch is real. But if someone suggested that we should gather up
all the pain in Birmingham, pour it into a jug, and then slosh it out to
the ocean in a pipe, this is reifying the concept of pain and brain
damage. I don't think that you would want to say out loud that there is
somewhere a bucket of pain. Someone would ask you what color it is. Or if
it smelled perfumy.