Paradigms can be described as the lens (shaped through empirical evidence, biology, and past experiences), that helps interpret the world around us, allowing us to create our version of a situation that we hold true to ourselves. It is easy for us to get wrapped up inside our paradigms as 1. Our paradigms are invented in our brains, we live in our brains, so for our whole lives, we have been living in our paradigms. 2. They provide us with rational expectations about what will probably occur (as if the premises of our paradigms are ‘true’, logic warrants a valid conclusion.) This perhaps shows not only how important paradigms are, but on the other hand, suggests that they are limiting.

Paradigms set boundaries to our imagination, making it difficult to view/imagine the world outside of the paradigms we have created. This connects to Buzz’s dis-heartening realization that he is just a toy. In his paradigm, he didn’t view himself as one of the toys but soon later his paradigm was contradicted with an ad that he saw, suggesting that he was.

This brings up the idea of the validity of paradigms. His paradigm failed consistency, it was unable to stand up to evidence (him trying to fly), indicating that his paradigm had to be neglected and reconsidered to, in this case, fit the ‘bigger’ paradigms (which a sufficient number of people believed to be true) of which he was initially not aware of.

This could be seen as a way to explain a shift from ‘modern paradigms’ to ‘post-modern paradigms’. Buzz initially believed that he was rationally superior, that he was capable of doing more than the other toys. He thought that he could understand and control the world around him, but later, just realised that this thought was just his paradigm. The ad perhaps made him realise that the way he saw himself was not paradigmatic: he has biases, he has made mistakes, he isn’t something so special and instead, he is just here in the moment (postmodern paradigm). This could be the reason for his dismay. It is to be fair, a rather ‘glass half empty’, depressing way to see the world.

In a bigger picture, this outlook, although more accepted by the scientific community, doesn’t see thinking as the quest for an abstract truth of existence, but alternatively, a belief that there is no universal truth. Although postmodernism is rising in popularity, there can be some dangers. In the absence of ‘absolute truth’, nothing is objective and instead, everyone gets subjective opinions which can cause hostility and uncertainty. I personally find the idea of us humans being insignificant within the greater matrix rather comforting (when doing badly in a math test for example) but frankly, my paradigms have made me believe that there is nothing more important or worthy of attention than me.

Perhaps a shift into postmodernism portrays the idea that progress is necessary for our world (despite some societies remaining primitive/‘traditional’). We as a society have embraced progress in stride towards perfection, but we don’t really question why progress is important in our society (of it is even progressing at all? We could be going a step backward?) but maybe we should. Perfection is our goal as a society, but we forget that it is a utopian concept and something beyond our control but perhaps these paradigm shifts are our attempt in reaching it.