The physicists of the early 20 th Century were presented with a universe very alien to the intuitive ‘clockwork’ system described by Newton, Galileo et al. However, making headway in the new physics required its pioneers to be willing to accept an extraordinary new vision of reality. In short, it required a paradigm shift – it asked that we release an old and familiar explanatory framework in order to grasp a new and more powerful one. However, the unlocking of this potential required a wholesale reassessment of how we had previously come to understand reality. The new physics brought with it striking new powers to explain and predict the phenomena of the physical universe, unleashing a wave of cosmological discovery and technological innovation. special relativity and quantum mechanics), new foundations for understanding physical reality had to be established. In the leap from Newton’s physics to the ‘new’ physics of Einstein, Planck, Heisenberg et al. But sometimes the very foundations used to turn information to understanding need to be radically rethought. We use prior knowledge, trusted methods and accepted assumptions to place a new layer of understanding on the layer before. In general, the sciences inch forward gradually on shared foundations. In the natural sciences, only a handful of true paradigm shifts have ever occurred. A paradigm shift does not primarily change our understanding of a given piece of information, but goes much deeper, changing our approach to how all things fit together, including the process of understanding itself. This kind of move has been called a paradigm shift, a radical reshaping of the way we see and explain reality. Like a person jumping from one stepping stone to another, we may have to leave the safety of one explanatory framework to land both our feet safely on another one. This may mean questioning long-held norms, definitions and connections.
To make fullest sense of what is out there, it may be necessary to change our conceptual framework – to revisit how we make sense of the facts of life. In such a case, the sense can arise that maybe we don’t just need more information, we need a different way to link and interpret all information In the face of new information, old explanatory connections can become increasingly strained. Yet, once in a while, a person may be compelled to make a significant leap in the way they see the world. Most people are naturally wary, changing their opinions of people and things only gradually. This is as true of our personal relationships as it is of our approach to the physical world. We build slowly on what we know, using methods we have reasons to trust. The way we understand reality usually develops incrementally.
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