On Labels, Reality, and the Search for Cause

Language does not create reality. It distributes consequences.

In the Pantheon in Paris, I had an experience that overwhelmed me.

Jung might have called it an encounter with God.
A recovery group might have called it contact with a higher power.
A neuroscientist might have called it an altered brain state.
A sceptic might have called it an emotional surge produced by architecture, memory, symbolism, and suggestion.

I could call it spiritual.
I could call it psychological.
I could call it Coco the Clown.

None of those names would change what happened.

The experience came first. The label came after.

That matters because we increasingly live as though naming does more than describe. Once something has been labelled, we act as if it has been explained. But naming is not explanation. A word can organise our response to an event without ever reaching the event itself.

That does not make language trivial. Quite the opposite. Language matters enormously. It shapes law, medicine, education, politics, morality, and identity. But its power is downstream. A label does not alter an experience already lived. It alters the chain of consequences that follows.

That distinction sounds small. It is not. It is one of the central confusions of modern life.

Take something simple. A mug can be called a mug, a cup, or a drinking vessel. The object does not change because the vocabulary changes. The thing remains what it is. Yet each term frames it differently. “Mug” suggests one use, “cup” another, “drinking vessel” a more formal category. The label does not create the object, but it guides perception.

Move from objects to human beings,…