Leonardo da Vinci once said: “All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions.”
Thus we require a collective past – hence the endless reinterpretations of history, frequently to suit the perceptions of the present. Was Imam Hosein “brave”? Was Mosaddegh a “coward”? The universe itself, at its very core, indeed seems to be tied to perception. e.g. the theory of Relativity and Quantum Physics, both are tied to how the universe is observed. As Bishop George Berkeley (whom the University of California-Berkeley is named after) put it “esse est percipi” (to be is to be perceived). So is there no objective reality? Is one man’s terrorist another man’s freedom fighter?
