Semantic Baggage

"You can't step in the same river twice" according to Heraclitus is an example of a statement at a memetic level that bring a lot of invisible baggage with it. One can immediately engage cognitive functions to show how true it is. However, it invisibly brings a world view of constant change and flux that is at odds with a lot of our daily experiences. These experiences can be from our address remains the same, our relationships don't vary all the time, we don't lose our skills, ..... There are interesting philosophical roots for this notion. An innocent sounding "wise" phrase brings with it an entire world view which we may end up espousing without even realizing that we have pulled in to a semantic gravity well. Another way to think about is that such statements bring with them a frame that we enter without often realizing that we are not in a different "reality" / perspective / worldview.

Presuppositions and Logic Errors

If we have the presupposition that the world is a fair and just place, then it follows that what happens has to be cast in that light. The victim then has a causal relationship in what happened to them. The victim has to be responsible (in part?) for what happened to them, otherwise the presupposition is invalid. And since the presupposition is generally invisible and out of consciousness, victim blaming is the result. There is some psychological research on this phenomena.