Our perceptions give us the plan of our eventual action on things much more than that of things themselves. The outlines we find in objects simply mark what we can attain and modify in them. The lines we see traced through matter are just the paths on which we are called to move. Outlines and paths have declared themselves in the measure and proportion that consciousness has prepared for action on unorganized matter-that is to say, in the measure and proportion that intelligence has been formed.

Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution, Arthur Mitchell (trans.), Dover Publications (Mineola, New York)

What’s a hypersurface? Comment from a checkout clerk at a local food store upon reading the name on my company identification card.