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Worldview vs. Perception
By: Stephen K. Donnelly

In the mundane of everyday life, we rush to and fro, constantly making decisions without thinking twice. These decisions are often made subconsciously, allowing our biases to influence our judgment. Our decisions are always heavily influenced by our overall all view of reality. We call this a worldview; others call it a perception of reality, and still
others, both. Interestingly, a worldview is not the same as a perception of reality. Many people consider them to be one and the same thing. Moreover, it even more common that people do not consider that understanding the distinction has any practical value. Humans are an empirically inclined species, resting most decisions upon observations made by the sensory organs. Proper interpretation of reality requires that we also use our intellect in addition to our senses. Properly interpreting reality is crucial if we wish to
make wise decisions. No one (save for God, the almighty Creator of Reality) can ever be able to see all of reality at one given moment. Everyone perceives reality differently. No two of us ever share the exact same perception.

Consider the following analogy: In a large room, is an African elephant. Suppose four blind men enter the room, and position themselves in different spots around the elephant. Each person assumes that he is standing in front of the elephant, but as blind men cannot see, each man ends up on a different side. We then instruct the men to describe, to the best of their ability, what the elephant's features look like based upon their sense of "feel" using their hands. Each of the men places their hands on the elephant and feels its cold, damp skin. The man positioned at the back of the elephant immediately shouts, "this creature is very large, and has an unusually thin and shriveled trunk!" The two men on the right and left sides of the creature quickly reply, "no, no. This elephant is indeed large, but has no trunk at all; I've felt all over, but I still can feel nothing that feels like a trunk." Finally, the man who is standing at the front of the animal comments: "you are all wrong! It is obvious that this elephant has a rather large snout as well as a huge body. How can you people be so blind?"

In the example above, each man comes into the room having a basic idea in his mind of what an elephant looks like. However, none of the men seems to be able to agree with each other over the details of the creature's physical appearance. They all concur that the elephant is enormous, but they disagree over the issues concerning the elephant's trunk. That is, each man's perception of reality carries at least a few elements that are found in the perceptions of the others (i.e. "the elephant is large"), but each perceives the details in a vastly different way. None of the men are fully able to look at the whole picture, since they are all blind. This is how humans understand reality. The importance of understanding all of this is revealed when we realize that how we live our lives is directly linked to our perception of reality.

True reality is not the same for me as it is for my neighbor, or my teacher, etc.. Some may accuse me for claiming that reality is relevant. I do not seek to abolish absolutes, but rather, to put them in their proper place. If one considers reality for even just a moment, he cannot successfully refute this claim of relevancy. A perception of reality is the collection of everything that we know about everything. From this seemingly un-comprehensible amount of knowledge, our brains form their "records" of the past (both of ourselves and humanity in general). Is it possible for two individuals to know everything that the other knows, and know nothing more than that which the other knows? Certainly this is not so! Surely there exists innumerable facts, events, information, etc. that while known to the one person, will never become known to the other. Any given two realities then, by definition, cannot be the identical.

A worldview is often mistakenly defined as another term for a perception. A worldview; however, has the inherent potential to be slightly different from our perception. Reality is interpreted by our perception, and our worldview is derived from our perception. The worldview takes the perception, adds in our personal beliefs (i.e. Religious views, etc.), and then re-packages the perception as a worldview. A perception is, by its very nature, not prone to becoming biased. A worldview may be nearly identical to our perception,
but may also contain things that were derived from sources other than the perception. A perception is empirical, but its corresponding worldview is often not. I may deduce from a simple observation that the moon is as close to earth as it appears. However, an astronomer tells me that the moon is hundreds of miles away, and just appears to be close to earth. If I choose to let the astronomer's belief overshadow the deduction I derived from my observation, I'm sub-conscienceless leaving my perception to live by my new worldview. By simply perceiving reality as everyone does, it is not certain that the validity of Islam will suddenly become obvious to me. I must base my faith in Islam from a source other than my perception. My perception may often convince me that Islam is illogical, so it cannot be by the perception that I'm convinced that Islam is actually otherwise. Hence, my worldview does not fully align itself with my perception. They are not the same.

Article Source: http://journal.ilovephilosophy.com

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