Abstract

Physics tells us that the world that we live in is “really” composed of vast numbers of tiny particles, defined and individuated by their mass, charge, velocity and position. That is all there is, the rest being empty space. In contrast the world that we interact with in our every day lives is composed of rooms with windows, people and cats, and plates filled with milk and cornflakes. It is a world of individual objects and stuffs, most of which can be effortlessly identified and labelled as being of a particular kind. Like an illustration in a child’s reader, we could look around our environment and attach labels to all of the objects and kinds of things around us.