warm jackets and subject-object duality

a shivering winter toon guy with icicles hanging from his nose, hugging himself to keep warm

Here’s a simple metaphor for the way we tend to get confused about how we make sense of the world.

It’s a cold day, so I put on a warm jacket. What makes that jacket warm? Is it inherently warm? Warm by nature? Not at all.

What makes the jacket warm is me. It’s my warmth we’re talking about here. The jacket is just constructed in such a way that it traps my heat efficiently, so that it doesn’t escape into the environment.

Of course, “warm” is not a property that I possess, or why would I need the jacket? It is also not a property the jacket possesses. Jack and jacket come together, and the result is that I soon feel toasty.

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