Your Open Source Consciousness

Perception is the feeling of knowing derived from individual interpretation of an environment, situation, or idea. Knowing is the feeling of truth and surety that comes from perceiving things in a particular way and interpreting them to be absolute certainties. Perception is an individual characteristic: each person's perception is completely different. Therefore perception cannot be influenced by other individuals, as this adds new perceptions to the original, bringing the perceiver one step closer to knowing. Knowing is understanding or acceptance of a truth that has been studied and passed around through the world, so that each person has added his or her perception to it and it has become closer to an actual truth. Ordinary people are given knowledge that has been adapted from other peoples' perceptions: the ideas of scientists, politicians, and people who tend to generate information is given to us through the media and through other people. We take these ideas, formerly the perceptions of one person, and make them our own knowing.

Take Wikipedia as an example. It's the perfect case study for the differences between perception and knowing: it's the information collection that some describe as the flawed babblings of every plebe with a PC and others call the brilliantly organized and administrated compilation of the best of humanity's knowledge. Those who dismiss Wikipedia as biased ignore the fact that opinions are not allowed without proper documentation, and original research is forbidden on the grounds that it allows the reporter to add his own spin to the facts. It's true that anyone can change an article, but for every person who does there will be several to make sure he follows the rules. Alternatively, those who hold the site up as the ultimate compilation of the collective consciousness have forgotten that even the administrators with the best of intentions can add their biases to the mix. All the information found on Wikipedia originated as the perception of individuals and has been added to and modified over the course of its lifetime to be a source of knowledge for many. Many interpretations have come together and been transformed into truth.

Perception and knowing are often causes and effects of one another: I percieve that the sun rises every morning, therefore I know that the sun will rise tomorrow morning. This perception has been confirmed not only by every living human, but by science as well, placing it safely in the category of knowledge. However, knowing often comes without perception, and perception does not always guarantee knowing. For those with a tendency to take facts given by authority figures as truth, perception is not necessary. Only knowledge is necessary, as long as the knowledge stems from an acceptable source. Perception would lead to the formation of new opinions and the inclusion of new ideas into the old volume of knowing, something those in control of said volume would not appreciate.

Knowing does not always follow perception. This leads to myriad different outcomes, some better than others. For the opinionated individual, perceptions are form of knowing that does not rely on the input of others: certainty that a particular perception is correct, even if that perception is held by no other individual, gives a completely self-created truth unconnected to the common knowing. For the individual wary of the influence of the knowledge and perceptions of others, no fact is accepted as truth, and all are considered possible carriers of bias or uncertainty.

It would be extremely difficult to find a flawless way of knowing. The perceptions of the ancient philosophers, upon which many of us have built our own explanations of reality and human nature, are still the thoughts of individuals. Though they have been confirmed and supported by hundreds of generations worth of new perceptions, they still bear the mark of an individual mind, an uncited source. A possibly more accurate way of knowing would be to rely on scientific and mathematical facts, perceptions made by machines rather than by humans. Data produced by these entities would be unbiased, barring tampering by their creators. Facts produced by such machines, when given to individuals, would provide them with pure knowing, something they could not get from other sources.

None of this takes into account the possibility that the collective type of knowing may be the best after all. For what is a fact if not a universally accepted truth, even though that truth may be fundamentally untruthful?