Shared Perception
We are receiving ever more new sensations and our brains are busy processing them into some kind of perception of reality. It’s an inescapable individual endeavour.
But over time, certain individuals begin to realise that it isn’t just their own unique perception of the world. They encounter other people who have also found themselves perceiving in a similar way – taking in the sensations and organising them into a similar, meaningful experience of the world.
At the early stages, all manner of conversations will be going on about what may or may not be happening and where it may or may not be going; confusion reigns and the only thing people seem to agree upon, is the basic fact that there are many new sensations.
Imagine the residents of Pompeii looking up at the mountain, for example.
Now if a conversation starts amongst a few people wondering about the cause of the smoke and the mildly unsettling tremors, it may well occur that as they share their perceptions of reality, they realise a new, shared perception has been developed, bringing even greater meaning to those new sensations. Enough so that it results in a shared action, like, “Let’s get the hell out of here!”
As the number of people who begin to perceive the new sensations increases and if the way they perceive those sensations largely overlaps, then a shared understanding has arisen.
But reviewing my pretty diagram, I am now seeing that the linkage between Hyperconnectivity and Shared Understanding needs to be represented in at least two distinct ways: one is the capability of sharing the understanding once it has been identified, which is what I had in mind when I constructed it; the other is the catalytic function that Hyperconnectivity provides for bringing about the initial spark of actually identifying a Shared Understanding between individuals.
A catalyst, just like this blog.
Tags: hyperconnectivity, Perception, Shared Perception
This entry was posted on Monday, February 22nd, 2010 at 12:21 am and is filed under Share This Course, hyperconnectivity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
February 25th, 2010 at 5:53 am
The image of Pompeii works really well and I find it interesting to think about. Groups would gather, and make different interpretations of the phenomenon. Maybe some would think that the rumblings signalled the awakening of a god, and that they should all prepare to receive him.
It reminds me of the sharing makes us great and sharing destroys greatness camps.
Another point the image brings up, in Pompeii, no one could alter the underlying phenomenon. They could either remain or leave. In Kevin Kelly’s TED talk, he suggests the alarmists take this position; we abandon or accept the technium. Yet, since this growing phenomenon, in a fundamental way, comes forth from us, our behaviors at the mass level play a guiding role in its development.
I guess I see this project as an attempt to consciously engage the transition. Whatever the outcome, posterity will know that at least we tried.
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