Article June 27, 1994 Issue

Second Thought

Looking again at news and commentary

Tom Harpur

The Toronto Star,

From The Toronto Star,
November 7, 1994 "The 'seeing is believing' crowd miss life's real joy" by Tom Harpur

"One of the commonest aphorisms in current use is the old saw, 'Seeing is believing.' Like most proverbs it has a kind of truth at its core. But taken literally and applied universally, it's utterly misleading. It needs to be balanced by some deeper insight. For example, there's just as much truth in its exact opposite: 'Believing is seeing.' You see what you yourself expect or project.

"Philosophers and psychologists have known this for a long time. We are not neutral observers of a totally objective, remote reality. We shape and influence the kind of life we have and our experience of the cosmos by what we ourselves bring to it....

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