Lucy Keer

There’s a slew of neutrons out in the Crab Nebula, and a slew of photons coming our way, but there’s no objective criterion for “pulsar,” >

in the sense that there’s always going to be marginal cases, and there’s no independently-existing criterion of whether a particle is part >

of “the object” (whether a jam jar or pulsar). Rather, perception is the *active process* of separating things into objects and categories.

What’s cool here is we can hear in real time these guys accomplishing the work, for first time ever, of individuating a pulsar-as-object

They’ve used all this equipment and theory to carve away the pulsar from the rest of the universe. Which we all do every sec with other objs

This case study has 2 cool features: (1) unfamiliarity makes it easier to see the active work of object & category imposition

which otherwise we pass over without noticing it because it is so familiar and automatic and unproblematic