I was reading this today, and made me think about that the stupidest fucking thing many academics do — and I don’t know why this happens — is that they believe if you can’t draw clear boundaries around something and locate it specifically, it doesn’t exist.

This is not the way the world works! A species is a human construction. So is a generation. Or even a star, or a galaxy. These things are not in the world; they are in our minds.

I don’t know what to call this tendency as it’s not quite reductionism. It’s a very strange mindset since when you examine it closely enough, what completely discrete phenomenon even exists in this universe? Above the quantum level, zero. This universe is one of continuous gradations, of unclear boundaries. This ridiculous fantasy that something must have an extremely clear border to be able to discuss it is something so inane and witless that I don’t know how anyone can believe this, much less “educated” people.