>[!quote] [James J. Gibson](https://monoskop.org/images/c/c6/Gibson_James_J_1977_1979_The_Theory_of_Affordances.pdf) The _affordances_ of the environment are what it _offers_ the animal, what it _provides_ or _furnishes_, either for good or ill. Wealth is such a powerful illusion because it transcends the actual limits of our circumstances. For those of us fortunate enough to grow up in "developed" and "civilized" nations, money represents the ability realize our wildest imaginings. An [[Affordance]] is anything that the environment provides to the animal that inhabits it. Because the human brain has developed the ability to separate concrete material into abstract categories, it has also developed the ability to create a *representation* of need. Marx refers to this evolution of money as **eminent possession.** It represents the possibility of any object and therefore becomes sought after in place of any those objects. >[!quote] [Karl Marx](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/power.htm) >By possessing the property of buying everything, by possessing the property of appropriating all objects, money is thus the object of eminent possession.” In other words, money represents options, both in the present and in the future, and since the number of options is only limited by the amount of money available, we typically focus on making more money when we don’t know what to do. Money is how we deal with the decisions of the [[Philosophy MOC#^1d6ab3|future self]].