Originally Posted by
Adam Strange
It reminds me of the time I was learning calculus and encountered the idea that a point on a curve has a slope associated with it. Obviously, a point has no slope, but the entire edifice of calculus hinged on this idea, so I had to try to grasp it, but could not.
I thought intensively about it for two weeks and then gave up, and instead just learned the formulas. After a while, it stopped bothering me and I proceeded on to much more math.
I was just reading Ammianus Marcellinus' account of Jovian's campaigns in Persia, and marveled at the way that the question of whether or not to fight a battle seemed not to be based on strategy, but rather on personal initiative moderated by divination. "The foraging guys just killed a lion. That means a king will fall", etc.
It is no easy task to build a consensual reality which is both useful and understandable to most people.