Similarly to the way we are fooled into believing that it is action that matters, and inaction is mostly harmless, we are consciously or unconsciously convinced that what we can see is far more important than what we can’t.

It’s a facet of being fooled by appearances — or maybe even the Platonic form of it: the belief that things that are visible exist, and things that aren’t do not. That what we can see is all there is — that reality can be somehow literally be taken as all that can be filtered through our visual system and nothing more.

Related to:

• Chesterton’s Fence: the illusion that because we cannot see the reason for things being the way they are, that no reason can exist
• Dr. Seuss: Horton Hears a Who