Echoes of Summer

We just got back from a walk at 28°C and rising. On days like today we are reminded that we belong to a world that includes other critters. When they find it too hot, some of them (I call them quantum rodents) manage to tunnel through concrete foundation or brick walls to take shelter in our floor. Don't ask me how they do it. I never understood quantum tunnelling.

You neither? We're in good company. Richard Feynman said that nobody understands quantum mechanics, which means we belong to the group that includes Richard Feynman, Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, and Monika Schleier-Smith. To be absolutely clear, even brilliant people like us do NOT understand how quantum rodents get into our floor on a hot day. 

Well, there may be exceptions. Trump understands everything. Putin tells you what to understand or you're gone. Marjorie Taylor Greene understands things that couldn't be true in this universe. Danielle Smith understands what she understands, and anything different is a Marxist conspiracy, which means almost everything is a Marxist conspiracy. The rest of us just don't understand and will admit it.

Get to the point, Dennis.

OK, the point is we form groups based on similarities and exclude those who are different. Then it becomes a contest, us against them. The similarities can be anything, your species, ethnicity, language, accent, gender, a colour preference, what music you listen to, whether you vacation in Florida or Nunavut, where your house is relative to the railroad tracks, whether you believe that the Spirit emanates from the Father or from the Father and the Son (filioque), and who gets to decide such issues. 

In more abstract terms,
the list of similarities and differences includes:
ontology (the way things are),
perception (what we make of the way things are), values and preferences (what's better or worse),
ideas (maps and models of meaning),
power and politics (who chooses what happens),
and all the stuff I neglected to include in this list.

Here is a definition of a group with which I am familiar. Dorothy and I are a group. We are the same species; we like each other; we share progressive ideas such as the irrelevance of filioque; and we live in the same home. 

The quantum rodents are outsiders. They are not our species; we don't like them because they make scary noises; we are smarter than they are so we understand this place is ours; they want to share our space, which sounds like a Marxist conspiracy or maybe Franciscan. 

Anyway, laying claim to the homestead, whenever we hear quantum rodents scrabbling in the floor, I put the Pop 40 on the bluetooth speaker, turn the volume up full and park it on the heat register. So far it works. FYI (For Your Information) rats and squirrels do not tolerate Beyonce, Justin Timberlake, Tyler Shaw, Jason Derulo, Miley Cyrus and the rest. After five minutes, we be like quantum-rodent-free. Unfortunately, after two minutes I be more like one of the rodents. The Pop 40 be like an alien species with a different language. You know TFW (That Feeling When) them is not one of us? That be like the Pop 40.