Yeh, Taka, I know what to do with the Xs and Ys...and I understand the wisdom in using abstractions to talk about principles rather particulars. I'd just rather talk about crows. There's a wonderful poem on the subject by D. H. Lawrence, if only I can find it.
...Later...found it!
From "Demiurge":
They say that reality exists only in the spirit
that corporal existence is a kind of death
that pure being is bodiless
that the idea of the form precedes the form substantial.
But what nonsense it is!
as if any Mind could have imagined a lobster
dozing in the under-deeps, then reaching out a savage and iron claw!
Even the mind of God can only imagine
those things that have become themselves:
bodies and presences, here and now, creatures with a fooothold in creation
even if it is only a lobster on tiptoe...