The Elusive Infrastructure of Thought

Part 1 in a three-part series

We live inside conceptual frameworks the way fish live in water. Even the word ‘fish’ is itself a framework label or a way of grouping certain kinds of creatures together. We rarely notice these frameworks as objects of attention unless there's a problem, but without them we simply could not live as we do. They are, by way of a different analogy, simultaneously air traffic controllers and commercial pilots. I can be reasonably sure you’re not thinking this piece is about fish.

But unlike fish in water, which swim unconsciously, we actively deploy, revise, remodel, and build anew these frameworks as navigational tools on the fly—the veritable airplane overhaul taking place en route over the ocean. This strange double duty of being both the dynamic engine of sense-making and the very instrument that guides our experience makes them simultaneously our greatest asset and our most subtle trap.

When Rice Isn't Just Rice

Suppose you had to choose white or brown rice at dinner. Most of us collapse both varieties into a single conceptual framework: rice. One grain, slightly different processing, no big deal. But this collapse hides crucial distinctions that some say matter enormously for health—fiber content, nutrient density, glycemic impact.

This reveals how conceptual frameworks determine what we can attend to, what we learn, and what we decide to do. For the first ten years of our marriage, my wife — a second-generation Japanese American — steered me away from sushi. ‘White people don’t like sushi,’ she insisted. Then one New Year’s Day, her mother served it and, with my father-in-law’s encouragement, I tried it. I loved it. Kaz promptly made me an ‘honorary Japanese.’ It was only later I realized I’d been living inside the framework of ‘whiteness = not allowed,’ which determined what counted as possible for me.

I didn’t understand why sushi was off limits to me, though I definitely felt a bit ostracized. Frameworks are invisible cognitive infrastructure. They don't just organize information—they determine what counts as information in the first place. Whiteness counted in this calculus. Think of "baseball cards" or "coins" or "electric guitars." Without frameworks distinguishing "nutrition" from "taste" from "cost," rice is just rice. One quarter is like any other. Each card is a “so what” to the unknowing. An ES175 is like a Fender Strat.

Learning happens by acquiring new frameworks or refining existing ones. You literally cannot learn what your current framework renders invisible. The student who sees "stupid math problems" can't learn what the student who sees "logical reasoning problems" automatically perceives. Same worksheet, completely different realities.

Experience is framework-dependent. Two people eating identical rice have completely different experiences based on whether their framework includes concepts like "fiber content," "processing methods," or "cultural significance." Most powerfully: frameworks determine what counts as a problem worth solving. Without nutritional frameworks, you can't see processed food as problematic.

Human development is largely framework development—expanding our conceptual repertoire to perceive richer distinctions in similar situations.

Reality Isn't Pre-Given

These examples point to something deeper: frameworks don’t just shape what we notice, they shape reality itself. Conceptual frameworks aren't just ways of organizing pre-existing experience. They're constitutive—they actually create the reality we experience.

We don't organize our rice decision by trudging out everything we know about white versus brown rice and then calculating our preference. In the moment, we know or we don't. It would be highly unusual to have a deep discussion unless you happened to be at a conference of nutritionists, who might talk all evening about glycemic indexes.

Reality doesn't just sit there like a lump of silly putty waiting for humans to play with it and make it into whatever they want. Humans live in a hard and fast dynamic reality limited in form and meaning by what they perceive and how they conceive it in real time.

To "experience" a theatrical performance or a bank robbery would be meaningless without the understanding afforded by frameworks. Without the framework of "causation," events would be just sequences. Without "self" and "other," there would be no agents or relationships. Without temporal frameworks, there would be no stories, no development, no meaning-making across time.

This constitutive power is uniquely human. Frameworks simultaneously help us navigate reality and create the reality we navigate. When we developed frameworks for "mental illness," we didn't just discover new ways to categorize existing conditions—we opened up new possibilities for both recognizing suffering and intervening in healing.

For Discussion: What's a framework you realized you were living inside in hindsight? How did that recognition change what you could see or do?

Part 2 Coming Soon: When Frameworks Collide: The way we consciously choose and work on a framework changes the reality we inhabit…