Descartes and Modern Travel

Just a random thought that rambles through the head.

Descartes radically redefined our concept of physicality and what it means to be embodied by reducing physicality to extension in three dimensions (see particularly my post on Genesis 1 and 2 in relation to materialism/scientism and creationism and my post on Tolkien's Incarnational imagination for a deeper exposition). Since then, we have worked to distance ourselves from encountering the actual extension of space. Modern forms of travel sort of remove us from the touch of exactly how much extension of space we have to go through to get where we want to go (especially in suburban areas and in interstate travel, but even other places where we use our technology to create as much isolation as possible, sometimes even from each other, as in dual climate zones in cars etc).

Including extension in the definition of physicality isn't bad, although I think that radically defining physicality by it was a very bad move. BUT the interesting thought that hit me was that we allowed it dominance in our thinking about our embodied experience and THEN we set about trying to conquer it (such conquests in general are a big project for Dr Weston in Out of the Silent Planet) ... kind of like once we became so preoccupied with it, we had to become more preoccupied to make sure it didn't rule us, when in reality, it rules us precisely in that move.

Don't get me wrong, I wish the 6 hours to go biking in NYC were less and I wish I could make it to the west coast to visit friends there as much as anybody else. But I also kind of think that maybe NYC wouldn't be so special to me if I could reach it as easily as I can reach Pittsburgh, and not just the time; I mean the effort of travel too (and I know exactly how much effort it can be, having once done the first half of PA in a one-way airport-to-airport rental in the middle of the night at 40 mph in a blizzard, then it cleared up some so I could make some better time and be there in time for the strongest of the morning congestion on the GW and CrossBronx).

Just an interesting thought.