My Perception of Knowledge and Perception

When I was younger, I used to sneak my copy of Mind Bending Optical Illusions into church for long services; it was small enough to hide, and could keep me occupied for hours. To me, it was pure magic how an image could make my eyes disagree with the rational part of my mind. I saw a figure before me, but I knew the figure could not exist. The question is: how did I know? What constitutes knowledge? Knowledge is information that is accepted as the truth. We live our lives by what we know: there are three hundred sixty five days in a year, fire burns flesh, one plus one is two. However, we rarely stop to think about how much of this knowledge is just perception. If knowledge is closer to an objective understanding of the world, then perception is a view of the world subjectively. It is information collected by the senses, and oftentimes it does not coincide with rational thought. I know that clouds are nothing but water droplets, but I still perceive them as being fluffy and soft. Our perceptions also stem from our personal desires, preferences, or predispositions. The same song that seems happy to an optimistic person, might make seem sad to a person who is depressed.
We live our lives by what we know: there are three hundred sixty five days in a year, fire is hot, the world is round. However, we rarely stop to think about how much of our “knowledge” is actually perception. After all, human kind once “knew” that the world is flat. The distinction between knowledge and perception is hazy. Knowledge is essentially a universally accepted perception, and thus we must have perception to have knowledge. However, it is not necessary to know in order to perceive because our perceptions do not depend on knowledge. I can see that my friend is upset before she tells me she is, much like I can tell that it is summer outside without looking at the calendar. We begin perceiving the world straight form the womb because part of human existence is a struggle to figure out the world.
Knowledge has become our way of evaluating our existing collective perceptions of the world; we remain on the quest to gain knowledge for the entirety of our lives. Taking knowledge from books or TV, for instance, can be dangerous because it forces us to trust the word of a complete stranger. How do we know a food critic’s review or a physicists’ formula is complimentary to how we would view it ourselves? However, collecting knowledge from books or TV is an excellent way to gain knowledge; hearing and thinking about other peoples’ perceptions of the world, provides the opportunity to discover something for ourselves with the guidance of people with experience. After all, knowledge originates from a perception compared and shared by a group of people.
The best way to know something is to explore it for oneself, while considering other peoples’ perceptions in the process.
Are optical illusions truly illusions? Who is to say those images from Mind Bending Optical Illusions can not exist in real life? What if it’s just our universal perception of the world that rooms cannot have two ceilings or that people cannot walk up one dimensional staircases. Even if pure, unbiased knowledge of the objective world is not possible, I do not mind. Individual perceptions keep the world interesting.