Quote of the Week
(February 23, 2026)

Who has not heard the various clichés about how our senses “lie” to us. Try immersing one hand in a bowl of hot water, and the other in a bowl of crushed ice, holding them there for a while. Then remove them both and place them together in lukewarm water. Initially, one hand will feel the water as cool and the other as warm. So goes the “proof” that the felt qualities of things are subjective and misleading compared to the objective report of a thermometer.

The conclusion is wrong. If you follow an identical procedure with two thermometers, you get a similar result: the two columns of mercury initially show different temperatures. Over time they move in opposite directions until, as happens with our hands, equilibrium is reached. Nor does hand or thermometer offer false reports during the period of adjustment. At every moment the reading correctly reflects the changing relations between water and measuring instrument. Such relations must be grasped in thought, which is the only way we ever make sense of our senses.

(from Chapter 13, “All Science Must Be Rooted in Experience”, in Organisms and Their Evolution — Agency and Meaning in the Drama of Life)

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