The Enlightenment was a revelatory and revolutionary event for mankind. In short, the commoner discovered the value and utility in the practice of reason. It’s difficult to fathom the gravity of that event now, because it’s almost more than second nature to us now. In fact, reason is so natural to the modern westerner that we’ve developed endless pathologies that stem from this innate ability. Ironically enough, this phenomenon has rendered The Enlightenment null. The proof of this claim is the simple fact that we have more knowledge and information to empower our reason than ever before, and yet the most widespread epidemics of physical and mental disease are more than ever before. There’s no reason why we should have as much anxiety, addiction, obesity, cancer, suicide or war if we have more reason than ever.

Presently, we find ourselves (mankind) at the precipice of a new cognitive dilemma. If you search the Ngram of the term “worldview”, you’ll discover that we’re at the peak of a 45-year exponential interest in this concept. This is important for two main reasons, as far as I can tell. The first is that the term “worldview” likely didn’t even exist before The Enlightenment. Don’t even mind the difference in terminology, because the concept as a whole of “worldview” was the exact same thing as “perspective.” If the common man could not even reason for himself, he likely didn’t consider that he could believe something about the cosmos that he hadn’t experienced for himself outside of a faith in a deity. The second reason that the meteoric rise of the term and concept “worldview” matters is because simultaneous to its spread, the internet was born (1983). I don’t believe this is a coincidence.

Your perception is extremely complex, but that deep-end-dive can be taken another day. For our purposes today, individual perception can and should be understood as the literal and metaphorical lens through which you experience the world. What you see, what you focus on, what interests you, what you feel, what your instincts tell you, how you react. It's a primal characteristic respective to your worldview. At least, it can be. Your world view has much more wiggle room. It’s articulated. It’s thought through to a degree. If you’re wise, it’s organized and methodical and can be supported and reflected by your highest values, principles, beliefs and actions. It can be manipulated. You can change it. It can adapt and grow, it can become infinitely more nuanced and high-resolution. If your perception is who you are currently, your worldview can be understood as the perspective of the person you will be in the future. Your distinguished thoughts about the world will certainly shape your perception as you aim toward the being that fits best with your worldview, intentionally or not. Thanks to the internet, we now have an overwhelming stock of lenses to try on. This is not a binary “good or bad,” but a catalyst for the outcome of our use of the internet. It is what you make it. Your perception of people, experiences, locations, ideas, theologies, discoveries, theories, etc. is subject to infinitely more than that of the pre-internet or pre-Enlightenment people.

This immense library also influences your worldview. This is simply a matter of controlling your information input as well as sifting the wheat from the chaff. Basically: pay attention to what you pay attention to. If you’re not, if you passively consume the internet, you leave your worldview, and therefore perception, and therefore behavior up to the whims of the internet that day. Or, for however long you blindly consume the greatest expansion of information that this world has ever known. You may begin to assume that my charge to you this morning looks something like “avoid doomscrolling.” However, that’s actually not helpful at all. We’ve established that more knowledge does not transfer by default to more reason. We’ve also established that a broader perspective does not transfer by default to a better, or even different, worldview. My charge to you today was best uttered by someone else:

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

— George Santayana

Every moment that you have perception is an opportunity to make a conscious choice on what to do with that datapoint. It doesn’t matter how much of your perception comes from the internet, as long as you can muster the gumption to filter it through your worldview. Even though a large part of modernity has rescinded The Enlightenment, you don’t have to. Become enlightened. Use your God-given reason to mold your perception into a path that leads you toward the role you want to play in your worldview. Because if you don’t, the third adaptation of The Enlightenment (AI) will provide a perception for you. It won’t be just a movie for much longer.