Re-reading my research to prepare my videos, I had a few thoughts
about the "Copernicus" story I often use to show how some erroneous
piece of fundamental knowledge can cause hardworking, intelligent people
to come to very bad conclusions. You can liken that to a broken
compass. No matter what you do or who you are, if you're unaware the
compass is faulty, you're not going to get where you want to go.
The
Copernicus story may seem unimportant for most people as it did not
have much of an impact on the everyday life of people. Astronomers had
their universe turned inside out, but what difference did it make for
all the daily tasks, relationships, etc of people's lives? Basically
nothing. Yet the realization that some fundamental fact about life
turned out to be wrong caused vast changes that have been going on for
centuries and continue today.
In fact I would claim
that some of the change that took place led to at least some "fact of
life accepted ideas" that are also wrong. Uncovering mistaken background
knowledge, a "broken compass", is what this series and the videos are
about. I'm attempting to pull back the first layer to begin to look at
who we are, what can we as individuals accomplish, and use a new view to
become more effective in anything we do. What if many of the things you
think about yourself are wrong? What if you could decide new
characteristics for yourself? How could you use them to become more
effective in getting where you want to go or even choose a new direction
you hadn't thought possible?
