I have a flat plane, white, for simplicity, and contrast, I have a random selection of black dots on the plane, as far as i can look in any direction, my white plane surface is covered in black dots.  All of the dots are pretty much the same, when seen from a great height. Little black specks scattered on the white.

Someone comes along and begins to trace a circle among the dots.  Eventually there is say a red circle, with black dots inside and other black dots outside the circle.  Some of the black dots, are actually sitting on the black outline of the circle.

I make an observation, that the dots inside the circle, are now defined by the circle.  In other words, the dots inside the circle take on the characteristic, or attribute of being inside the circle, from the point of view of the observer, who can see the circle, from way up above the plane.

The dots inside the circle can see a couple of dots in the nearby area, but in general the dots have no idea, whether they belong inside the circle or not.  It really is just the dots near the edge of the circle that know that they are on one side of a line or not.

Since the circle is large, even the dots near the edge of the circle don’t know that it is a circle.  What they surmise is that the line separates them from the dots just on the other side of the line.  Thus, the dots near the edge of the circle, have a knowledge that there are dots, which are no longer like them, merely because these dots exist now on the other side of the line in the vicinity.

In fact none of the dots actually know that they are either inside or outside a circle.  Only the clever dot, which got a bit of red and drew a line on the white plane and called the circle ‘circle of red enclosing dots’ knew or knows of the existence of the circle.

So another enterprising dot got up and thought, circles….mmmm….. ok he got a piece of yellow chalk, and started drawing a circle around another group of dots on the plane.

He called this circle “The Yellow circle enclosing dot’s which are not in a circle”.

Up until the moment, he published the name of the circle, all the dots were reasonable ok with their existence.

He first published the existence of the yellow circle to his friends only, non of whom were inside the yellow circle.  Everyone was impressed that he could define such a set of dots inside his yellow circle.

Things started going very wrong when he published the existence of the yellow circle to the dots which were inside the circle.  These dots suddenly became aware of the yellow circle and the fact that they had been classified in such a contradictory way !  How dare the yellow circle creator define them in such an arbitrary way., and without any kind of permission.

Should they opt out ? – this would make them very normal and boring dots.

Should they remain in ? – and live life in fear and contradiction.

Or should they wait until the rains came and rubbed out the yellow line thus defining them.