Can Two Identical Cars Exhibit a Difference in Anthropomorphic Welcoming? ─ A Way to Enlightenment

© 2010 Peter Free

 

05 September 2010

 

 

Mystery at the car dealership

 

After dropping her 2010 Subaru at the dealer for warranty work, my wife noticed a difference in the feel of the identical loaner car the dealer’s service department gave her.

 

The car was so identical in appearance that both of us had to remind ourselves (for 32 hours) that it was not our car.

 

On the other hand, she and I instantly recognized a slight difference in the psychological fit the loaner vehicle.  It was not as welcoming.  Not as instantly psycho-plush.

 

How did that happen?

 

 

Science suggests that

 

Since my wife drives her car 90 minutes a day and has taken two long trips in it, my scientific side says that shed skin cells and musk of her body have permeated it enough to make it an aspect of herself that the loaner car could not exhibit.

 

Similarly, her car’s seats would by now have subtly molded to the contours of our physiques.

 

Mystery solved.

 

 

But wait

 

That hypothesis, however, does not match our recollection of how her car felt when we first got in it.  Our memories remember the psycho-fit her first-day new car exhibited as being identical to what it is today.

 

 

Surely memory is distorted

 

Perhaps.

 

As I have written previously, I don’t trust my brain (or anyone else’s) to give even minutely accurate representations of the fullness of Reality.

 

But our perception of the difference exhibited by the loaner car seemed to go beyond musk and seat-fit to something more intangible ─ a physical expression of “car soul.”

 

 

“Pete, you are indeed an idiot”

 

Car soul?  Give me a break.

 

Attribution of soul to a machine parallels attributions of soul to environmental objects, like mountains, streams, and rocks.

 

We all know that’s nonsense.  Right?

 

 

Maybe it is not nonsense

 

I suspect that most of us who have traveled wilderness have noticed a difference in feel from place to place.  And even between spots a meter or so apart.

 

One can attribute this to the brain’s perception of the earth’s magnetism, energy and gravitational fluxes, and so on.

 

Or one can take it as a manifestation of something more subtle ─ interconnectivity between life and that which is not as visibly alive.

 

 

So, I don’t and can’t know

 

Unfairly, I left off part of this car story that tips the scale of doubt, rather fiercely, both ways.

 

Earlier this year, my wife’s Subaru arguably saved her and her sister’s lives.  It deflected the body of a large male deer from penetrating the windshield and passenger compartment at 65 mph.

 

Naturally, that incident would have had a significant impact on my wife’s psychology.  Less directly on mine.

 

Alternatively, the anthropomorphic among us could say the Subaru was looking out for her.

 

That would remain the so, even if we took causation a step up and said the Subaru’s protection was a manifestation of God’s or the Universe’s hidden hand, exerted via the myriad people who contributed to its design and manufacture.

 

 

Reality is not what it seems

 

I like ambiguity.  It stirs imagination and, arguably, connectedness.

 

Reality is not concrete.  There is more to stone and steel than we moderns see.

 

One wonders.  Lighted, lightened, and enlightened.