All of us are embedded in our own safe “reality”
All of us are embedded in our own safe “reality,” shaping what we see and know in ways of which we are completely unaware.
Many circumstances conspire to extinguish scientific discoveries, especially those that cause discomfort about our culture’s sacred norms. As a species, we cling to the familiar, comforting conformities of the mainstream. However, “convention” penetrates more deeply than we tend to admit. Even if we lack a proper name for and knowledge of the history of any specific philosophy or thought style, all of us are embedded in our own safe “reality.” Our outlooks shape what we see and how we know. Any idea we conceive as fact or truth is integrated into an entire style of thought, of which we are usually unaware. Call the cultural constraints “trained incapacities,” “thought collectives,” “social constructions of reality.” Call the dominating inhibitions that determine our point of view whatever you wish. They affect all of us, including scientists. All are saddled with heavy linguistic, national, regional, and generational impediments to perception. Like those of everyone else, the scientist’s hidden assumptions affect his or her behavior, unwittingly directing thought. —Lynn Margulis, Symbiotic Planet
- see also: the most hideous ideologies are the ones we believe without realizing it — the ones so natural and obvious it’s like air and water, and we can’t see any alternatives
- see also: everything is fiction