True knowlegde is interpersonal

Principle 2. The individual human intellect and senses are error-prone. True knowledge must be interpersonal, meaning multiple persons arrive at the same conclusion when they sense or reason about the same phenomenon.

Though Principle 1 clearly states that we as humans can understand the world, obviously we cannot hope to achieve that by our individual selves. Our mind and senses have great potential, but they can also be easily fooled or led astray. The list of human delusion is endless. To fulfill our potential, we have to help each other to hold on to what is right and ditch what is false. We cannot hope to learn and grow in isolation.

Principle 1 is about how we can learn new truths by formulating ideas and putting them to the test. It is an ongoing process, that requires us to keep an open mind for both strange new ideas and challenges to ideas that are already well-embedded. It is very much an interactive process that never stops, fueled by the books we read, the movies we watch, the conversations we have and the pondering we do when we are alone. We need a variety of perspectives to really understand what goes on in the world, and find the commonalities in those perspectives.

Today we have access to more knowledge than ever before, and we can discuss ideas with anyone around the world in real time. This is truly marvelous and we shouldn't forget what a blessing this is. True, there is also a huge load of stuff out there that isn't true and hampers our learning. But by applying Principle 1 we can distinguish what is true from what isn't and learn so much that until very recently would be out of reach of our individual lives.