A culture, any culture, already has a definite belief system and worldview, and will perceive everything in those terms. This will affect reason more than reason affects it. When Europeans first sailed to the New World, and began to take slaves from it and colonize it, certain scientists, who were working under the conceptual framework that Europeans were mentally superior to Native Americans, discovered that the cranium sizes of Native Americans were, on average, smaller than those of whites. To them, this proved that Native Americans were less intelligent. They believed reason had guided them to this conclusion, and the observation of an objective datum. Now, under a different conceptual framework, scientists have abandoned the idea that cranium size determines intelligence.

This is still going on in present-day science. The fossilized bones of a pre-historic Homo sapiens child are found. On close inspection of the bones, it is discovered that the lower legs are very long, something one wouldn’t expect, though the skull is definitely Homo sapiens. The scientist who, before this discovery, previously believed that humans and Neanderthals interbred, will say, "This is probably a hybrid of humans and Neanderthals—the skull is human, but the legs are Neanderthal." The scientist who believed, previous to this discovery, that humans and Neanderthals were different species that could not interbreed, will say, "There are many freakish children born—to say this is a hybrid is an irrational extrapolation." Each scientist, previous to the discovery, was working under a conceptual framework that determined how he interpreted, and to some degree how he perceived, the data that was gathered. The one sees definite confirmation of his belief system; the other sees an irrelevant, random happening that in no way tears down his belief system.

Humankind has only recently left behind certain superstitions about "demons", "witches", "evil spirits", and the like. Things they experienced like plagues, illnesses, and even the mentally ill, were mysteries it was beyond their technological ability to solve. And so they created belief systems that were very complex and involved to render these things comprehensible. They suffered simply by living in a world that didn’t make sense, and so put it into terms that made sense to them. There were, in the Middle Ages and beyond, entire "scientific" treatises and texts that compiled all the "knowledge" of things like demons and evil spirits that men had accumulated. There were vast systems of study in which each part worked in logically with every other part. Viewing their world in these terms, they looked to the Bible and found "proof" that witches exist. Actually, there are only a few lines in the Bible that directly discuss witches; but these seemed inflated in importance when seen through the belief systems of societies that thought witches were constantly attacking them. There are many details and issues in the Bible they merely passed over, that didn’t stand out to them.

Now, we still have superstitions in the form of belief systems about aliens that abduct people and a government that is in contact with them. Can I know if aliens are in contact with the government, and the government is keeping this secret? No. But if I bother to investigate the matter, I am already somewhat convinced. As soon as I start to read the paranoid opinions of others, I become fully convinced—and so I see everything in terms of that belief system, and my perceptions of the meaning in released government documents and the censored lines in them become infused with significance to me.

It is a really difficult thing to decide with logic what everyday experiences "mean". Logic, on its own, cannot tell us. This is something we learn to do naturally, depending upon our belief systems and socialization. The schizophrenic has lost this ability, and so spontaneously creates his own meaning in everything he sees, especially to answer questions he cannot know the answer to, that therefore make him suffer before the incomprehensible.