Words reduce the cost of thinking by ignoring the details of complex reality and mapping them to symbols, so when words are used to express “the essence of what is what,” it is always wrong in the same sense as [All models are wrong.
Another expression. The assertion that “the essence of X is Y” does not imply that there is an objective fact in the literal sense of the word. It is merely a statement of individual subjectivity, “I am focusing on the aspect of X called Y.”
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