[vladTheInhaler]

Is magenta a color? A real one? We perceive it as such, but there is no place on the electromagnetic spectrum corresponding to magenta. If you went hunting for magenta photons, you'd be hunting for quite a long while. What that says to me is that our intuitive mental construct of color isn't very reliable, even though it feels so real. Likewise, maybe we should be less trusting of our intuitive labels for other phenomena.

[padastra]

Tigers are real. Lions are real. The fact that Ligers exist doesn’t mean they’re not two different populations.

The point is that just because two categories can mix doesn’t automatically mean that those categories don’t meaningfully exist.