Day 72

I can finally feel spring. The clocks have gone ahead, and tonight as I rode home I could smell it in the air. Maybe it was just a combination of faint pollens, or an extra bit of warmth in the air, but it was spring alright.

From four years of philosophy at university, I can honestly say my views have changed in a few very significant ways. Perhaps these changes are too easily explained by the classes, when life outside of them could just as easily be a contributing factor. Either way.

I've grown to have a distaste for explanations of human feelings in terms of "just" physical processes. For example, after my run today I felt a certain uplifting sensation, a boost of energetic and healthy happiness, in spite of exhaustion. Four years ago, if you were to ask me what was happening there, I'd say something like "That's just endorphans being released."
But no, it isn't just that. Call me old fashioned, call me archaic, but I am increasingly convinced that there is (as Nagel would say) "something that it is like" to be an individual living creature. And this something is neither physical, nor subject to the laws normally ascribed to physical things.
In non-philosophical language: there's more to a feeling, a sensation, a sentiment, than any psychological explanation could offer.

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