I find this letter about the potential redefinition of “planet” very profound:

To the Editor:

So much fuss about a labeling problem! Pluto is a cold round object orbiting a hot round object — call it what you will. How arbitrary our labels are.

When the human race finally manages to do away with itself, all else in the universe will continue to exist (with the possible exception, depending on our method of self-destruction, of the rest of the earth’s biota).

Gone, however, will be the names and categories and interpretations that we have imposed on it.

Phyllis Cohen
New York, Aug. 16, 2006