It ain’t so much the things we don’t know that get us into trouble. It’s the things we know that ain’t so — Artemus Ward (1834 – 1867)
Take for instance, that grass is green, or that rocks are hard. We know they are. Except we don’t because they only look and feel that way to us because we have evolved to perceive them as green or hard.
If we stare at the ground a different way, and begin to see it rise and fall, as if it were pulsating or breathing, we would doubt our own perception – that cannot be, we would say, it defies common sense! However, if we didn’t doubt, but began to ritual with it, it might turn into something useful. After a few generations of using the pulsating ground swell, and teaching our children how to use it, it might appear to be part of the natural landscape.
Perhaps we could surf over it, and get to our destinations effortlessly (and gasoline free!). Sure, it started as a misperception. But we played with it, ritualed with it, and the landscape began to mirror it.
The physicists would argue that we are under an illusion about the greenness of grass, or the hardness of rocks, just as we are under an illusion about the pulsating ground or the existence of god. They know these things ain’t so, but that is where they are getting into trouble.