The Reality™ Institute

You recently read a very interesting article on how the flu vaccine kills astronauts.  This article was peer-reviewed and cites many other scholarly articles about the flu vaccine, astronauts, and studies about the flu vaccine and astronauts.  It is 10:30 am, Monday, February 2nd, 2008.  You are located at 1427 William St., River Forest, Illinois.  At 10:30 am, Monday, February 2nd, 2008 at your current location, you firmly believe that the flu vaccine kills astronauts.

Your belief looks like this at these space and time co-ordinates:

Therefore, in an in-depth conversation about medicine, you tell someone, “The flu vaccine kills astronauts.”  The other person disagrees.  You tell them about the scholarly article you read.  At 3:30 pm, Monday, February 2nd, 2008 at 3175 N. Broadway Blvd., Chicago, Illinois, your thought “the flu vaccine kills astronauts” is almost as firm as your belief in gravity.

Your belief looks like this at these space and time co-ordinates:

You refuse to budge around this idea and gain a reputation for believing that the flu vaccine kills astronauts.  Slowly you lose friends and have trouble making new ones.  Of course, you know that it is because of your stance on flu vaccines and astronauts and you start to doubt that belief.  You begin doing research, reading articles related to the topic and find that a lot of the scientists referenced in the original article you read, entitled Flu Vaccinations and the Death of the Modern Astronaut, have since been discredited and their careers terminated.  There was, it seems, a brief period of time in which the theory that the flu vaccine kills astronauts was seen as legitimate enough to be published in a respected journal for average readers and scientists to read and possibly believe.  Its effects continue to spread through space and time, affecting people who do not check the article’s references and current standing in the academic community.  You, however, realize your mistake and at 4:30 am, Tuesday, February 3rd, 2008 at 1427 William St., River Forest, IL, barely believe that the flu vaccine kills astronauts at all.

Your belief looks like this at these space and time co-ordinates:

You go to bed knowing that for almost a whole day you believed that the flu vaccine kills astronauts and that you had allowed a serious error to exist in your belief system.  You start to question your belief in gravity, but fall asleep before it can have very much effect.  You have a dream about astronauts being killed by the flu vaccine and then going to a strange world where children with no hair make their servants play polo.

At 7:30 am, Tuesday, February 3rd, 2008 swimming around between the subconscious and the unconscious, your belief looks like this: