We all do it even though we know we shouldn’t. We make assumptions about other people.
A couple of weeks ago, I gave a talk to some new college students The talk was all about how we each have our own frame of reference that is unique to us and that we shouldn’t assume other people share our frame of reference, because they don’t.
And then, during a section where I was talking about how you can’t undo an action once done, I added in a bit about time travel from Dr Who remarking that even if you had a TARDIS you still couldn’t go back and undo things because, as we all know, some points are fixed in time. My really cool Dr Who reference resulted in blank stares. Out of the 100 kids present, NONE of them knew Dr. Who. Which means, I gave them a perfect example of exactly how we all fall prey to assuming our frame of reference is shared by others when it really isn’t.
The point is that even those of us who are supposed to be really good at not assuming, make assumptions. We can’t help ourselves. Our brains are wired to take these sorts of shortcuts. All we can do is be aware that our perception might not actually be truthful so that when we are confronted by the obvious, we don’t ignore it. The good news is that I learned from this and checked with them before making a Matrix reference later on.