Methodological myopia

Attempting to understand reality through a single lens causes a myopia equivalent to the blind men and the elephant that various religions and philosophies use to demonstrate the importance of a prophet or how different people perceive reality differently depending on their perspectives. In the parable of the Blind Men in the elephant, six blind men feel different parts of the elephant, then explain what they think the elephant is.

• The blind man holding the trunk says the elephant is like a snake.
• The blind man grasping the tail says the elephant is like is a rope.
• The blind man holding his palms against the side says the elephant is like a house.
• The blind man stroking the ear says the elephant is like a fan.
• The blind man touching the tusk says the elephant is like a spear.

All are correct in their analogies, but mostly incorrect in their interpretation of what an elephant is. Even if they are able to stop their quarrel to combine the limited perspectives they do not understand the nature of the elephant. As the map is not the territory, the analogy is not the reality.

The moral of the story in the Buddhist version of the tale provides an apt editorial to consider when viewing the world through the disparate perspectives of human development (Udana: 68-69):

O how they cling and wrangle, some who claim

For preacher and monk the honored name!

For, quarreling, each to his view they cling.

Such folk see only one side of a thing.

Paraphrasing the moral of the story as interpreted by 19th Century poet John Godfrey Sacks, viewing the world through a myopic lens can cause people to "rail on in utter ignorance" about something they have not really seen. Given human nature and the disparate lenses of developmental psychology, even if a person with sight came upon the quarreling blind men, they would likely neither listen nor believe. Individuals tend to only perceive the world through myopic lenses, losing any opportunity to understand reality. Then again, even the sighted may only understand what they see as an elephant while failing to understand the true nature of the elephant.