Without you, there is no go. You are willing your forward locomotion, much the same way as when you "put one foot in front of the other" -- except for the force multiplier of steel and the internal combustion engine.
^^^^ CB; I exaggerated, but I am only a small part of the ...what...I guess it's the speed of the car and size, a big thing going fast that is the sensation ? I'm a but for cause , but not a sufficient cause. And there are many other but for causes.
I guess the speed of the big thing, the car, and the role I play in making it occur just don't amaze me that much such that I would refer to my role as a "power". I get the sensation, but it's not that fantastic after experiencing it thousands of times. Then there are just lots of other people who are but for causes of the rush. You know anti-commodity fetishism. The car is actually a pointer to all the people , the social labor and network that make up the sufficient cause of the rush, the zoom.
So, I could see celebrating the social labor in the thing as fantastic, but an actual fantasticism. All hail social labor, hurrah,hurrah,hurrah. I could hum that as I drive.
> The power doesn't come out of my foot and go into the car.
Yes, in fact it does. But it doesn't start in your foot, your foot is just another force multiplier.
^^^^^ CB: A key word in what you say being "just", not really very noteworthy ...well maybe but for.
Qualititative change transforms into qualitative change. I gotta give credit to Newton and thousands of others for that leap of humanpower from my foot to the horsepower in the car. So, shall we give all of ourselves a big hand, everytime I go for a ride in my car. Lets hear it for the proletariat, workers of the hand and foot ( for pushing down their foots many times) of autoproduction,and the engineers, and the physcists, and the oil workers, the mathmeticians, the mechanics. This thing is zoomin' !
^^^^
It starts in your brain, and perhaps, in your heart and your soul.
^^^^ CB: The idea of going for a ride in my car does start in my brain. I don't know if most of the time it starts in my heart and soul. The zooming thrill part of the car ride doesn't thrill me that much to start in my heart and soul.
^^^^^^
If you'd like another context, consider photography. You might say: I don't {m,t}ake the photo, it's just a machine that's outside of me with lenses and sensors and actuators, built by robots and fine-motor-skill workers in a distant land. But: you'd be wrong there, too.
^^^^^^ CB: It's built by workers in a distant land. Isn't that one of the most fanastic things about it ? The worldwideweb of labor producing things is where, the zoom, the hearts and souls are, not in the thing itself.
^^^^^^
I don't make bread, it's just an oven with grains gathered from the earth and water diverted from the river.
^^^^^ CB: I don't make the car. My foot motion is a necessary cause, but there are so many other hand, foot and brain motions that are , I don't know, more important in some sense, but-for causes , that I'm just not that impressed with my own but-for cause (without which not) in the whole thing. Maybe I'm being falsely modest. I don't know. I just feel it's a bit puffing to claim a "power" in driving a car, when I think about the social process as a whole. It's kind of commodity fetishism, making the thing come alive as a sort of substitution for the living people in the social network of the thing. I suppose if you think of yourself as on this social network big team, then you are exercising a power on behalf of the collective. And only you can as an individual. So, that's a special role. Lots of other individuals exercise the power equally. Hail, hail the gangs all here !
^^^^^
The book wasn't mine: the mechnical process of striking the ink through the ribbon onto the paper is completely outside of my control.
^^^^^^ CB: So, you are referring to the meaning of the car going fast ? And saying that I am a big cause of the meaning of my car going fast ? I am even less of a cause of the _meaning_ of fast cars. That is highly social. I have had even less to do with creating, having power over, the meaning of fast cars than I do with making my car go by pressing the accelerator pedal.
Physics wise, I'm not sure I did that much of the physical work * necessary in making the car zoom, so as to feel such a big thrill.
# "Drive, she said"
/jordan
CB: I agree that _she_ has power over the car and me.
* Work may refer to:
Work (thermodynamics), a measure of the amount of mechanical work that can be extracted from a system as determined, typically, via free energy calculations Mechanical work, a force applied through a distance, defined in physics as ( the mathematical formula for work S F ( arrow on top of the F) times ds ( with an arrow on top of the s). Work is a unit of measure in mechanics Manual labor, effort expended by people on productive activities in the home, school, or employment, or, by extension, one's place of employment or employer Work (project management), the effort applied to produce a deliverable or accomplish a task Work of art or artwork, a creation, such as a song or a painting Work (professional wrestling), a staged event - that is, one that enforces kayfabe; the term originates from "working a crowd" Work (Charlie Chaplin film), a 1915 Charlie Chaplin silent film co-starring Edna Purviance Work Records (aka WORK or The WORK Group), a music label under Sony Records
[edit] See also Labour
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work