A search engine can answer a question before you notice whose vocabulary shaped it.

REFLECTION

WHAT THIS MEANS

The words you use to search determine what you find. Those words came from somewhere, from how the topic is usually framed, from the terms the people who write about it prefer. The answer arrives feeling neutral, having been shaped by a vocabulary you inherited without choosing.

On anything important, try searching with different words, including the ones used by people who see it differently. Notice how the results change. That exercise reveals not just other answers but the fact that the framing of your question had already narrowed the field.

A QUESTION TO SIT WITH

Whose words were you borrowing the last time you searched something?

MORE IN PERCEPTION & ATTENTION

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