The idea of being concrete is abstract

— Devon (@devonzuegel) April 30, 2020

Further, the idea of being anything is abstract, because it requires conceptualizing one’s self as an entity separate from the world. Thus, the idea of “idea” is also abstract because a cat for instance does not have any ideas — it has observations, responses and actions. The same with a snail. In other words, being able to think of ideas as a phenomenon in the world at all means one has abstractions essentially from the bottom up. All of the mirrors are turned on one another, and where reality truly dwells and emerges from cannot ever be clarified.

However, a cat has a different predicament. It has no infinity mirrors, no ideas, no abstractions, thus no ability to reflect on and from anything other than brute reality. It’ll never get lost in a maze of abstractions, but it will also never escape a labyrinth that it doesn’t even realize it’s in.