Philosophy at the Dentist

Philosophy at the Dentist

Yesterday I was having a new crown fitted at the dentist (king at last!). It is not a pleasant procedure, though I’ve had worse. Apart from the discomfort, it is boring. I decided to try an experiment: see if I can think about philosophy while being drilled and scraped orally. Surprisingly, I found it possible. I thought about the paper I had been writing that morning (“Predicating and Necessity”). This proved helpful in enduring what my mouth was going through. I mentioned it to the surgeon who said it must be very useful to have that ability; I agreed. Oddly enough, I don’t find that other topics of thought have the same effect: somehow when I think about philosophy my brain goes into a special state of removal from the world around me. Is this because I have done it so often over a whole lifetime that the tracks are laid down in my brain? I wonder if other people have the same experience. If so, it could be beneficial as a form of therapy or meditation or simply dentist toleration.[1]

[1] I also had an interesting discussion with my hygienist about why only the soles of the feet and the roof of the mouth are associated with tickling of a peculiarly intense kind—really not pleasant at all. I can think of no evolutionary or other explanation of this phenomenon. Do all people have it? Why just those areas? What about animals? It seems like a profound mystery of human physiology.