It’s a great struggle to unravel a paradigm of understanding. Paradigms have the feature of quickly organizing data and experience within a referential framework. Paradigms have the bug that when data and experience do not conform to that framework, solutions are hard to come by. Systemic bias is not a denial of reality so much as it is an unwillingness to examine the epistemic framework in which reality is processed and understood. A map or a table, if you prefer to speak philosophically. We (all thinkers, not just scientists) will go to great lengths to avoid a paradigmatic upheaval. So many squares will be pounded into circular holes before unlearning what we previously believed was true.

One example is the classical notion that the universe is compromised of matter and forces. It is such an ingrained popular notion that it takes enormous effort to unlearn this dualism. Coupled with the idea that electrons “orbit” a dense proton/neutron core, one learns anecdotally that atoms are mostly made of empty space. Both ideas are false. If electrons orbit the proton like a planet around a sun they would spiral into the core in less than a split second. If atoms were really mostly empty space then it should be rather easy to squish them together, which it is not.

The old paradigm could not account for this evidence. Subsequently, a new paradigm evolved. But here is the thing. Paradigms are not one-off events. It’s not as if we wipe away the old software and add a bunch of new software. Often, we are struggling to find the contours of such a paradigm with only a dim notion of what it might be but knowing well what it cannot be.

It took awhile before a new paradigm emerged, one in which the universe is field-like in nature. In one sense, the world is more abstract and harder to intuitively grasp. The distinction between force and matter is more of a taste than a hardwired empirical fact. In another sense, the new paradigm is much more satisfying, with several Ah! moments. The way in which the inverse square law of EM and gravity naturally jumps out from fundamental wave-like properties of interacting fields and unconstrained force carriers propagating at the speed of light through space. The way in which particles are excitations within quantum fields and are distinguished by those that can share the same quantum state (bosons) and those that cannot via the Pauli Exclusion Principle (fermions).

What is the truth? Our bias is to affirm a conclusion we thought was true. We are humbled by a conclusion that is shown to be false. Rather, we should be focused on a better result. Not “what is the truth” but rather “why is it false?” This is where our hard work begins, both the beginning and the culmination of our efforts.