The hairdryer treatment

I AM so glad that I did not jettison my vague interest in things scientific and have many books on many subjects scientific. I read Professor Murray Pittock’s Agenda article (“Into a new era with an extended reality”, The Herald, May 17) and, more or less perplexed, went to talk to trees in the wood, which might be on the borderline of science, surely.

A while ago I came across a definition of metaphysics (subject, object and the nature of reality) which, simplified, is to think of a kitchen table when you are not there. The problem to be solved today was to think of the hairdryer when I was not there. The dryer was not there, in reality, either as it had ceased to work a while ago. Using what seemed to me could, possibly, be “extended reality (XR)” as I sat on a log in the wood, I wondered

how to create a new hair dryer. Bingo. Drape a towel over the hand-basin in the bathroom, put an old breadboard on top of it, put a fan-heater on top of that, plug in and switch on. It worked so well that I will keep my metaphysical version, dreamt up in the wood. I will leave XR and any new “thinking perception” to the real scientists.

Incidentally, that old breadboard lives under my bit of the sofa as it provides a feeling of solidarity in an otherwise weird world.

Thelma Edwards,

Kelso.