what distinguishes us at our very core is our tendency to make patterns. This is true of language, true of visual sense, and surely true of the other ways we think, such as forming theories. We tend to adopt short-cuts (perception theory is littered with examples of how the brain ‘fools itself’) and discard material that doesn’t sit happily with our frame of reference – because ultimately it is not the veracity but the aesthetics of the pattern that counts to a key part of our imagination!
As a matter of fact I believe this is what John Keats means by “beauty is truth…”
Yes, mav, we certainly do have a very strong tendency to make things fit into a recognizable pattern. You could well be right about Keats, too--no argument here. (I can't help being reminded of "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder".)
Attempting to make things fit a pattern, I think, accounts for a LOT of subjectivity. If I am in an environment that is completely alien to me, I will make efforts to comprehend it in ways that are familiar to me. So, my reporting of an event there may be incomprehensible to a native.
Making things fit patterns does not automatically mean that the result will be..."un-real", for lack of a better term.
I agree with tsuwm that there can be objectivity.
I also think that some of the world's greatest inventions came from people who had the ability to not see things as part of a pattern. I think a quote sent to me by a friend fits well here: "I like to find what's not found at once, but lies within something of another nature in repose, distinct."--
Denise Levertov
