d'Herblay ~ Oct 27 2001
The world you perceive is sometimes called the idios kosmos, from the Greek for "one's own order" or "personal universe." It is contrasted with the koinos kosmos, "shared universe," which consists of the common interpretations of our perceptions which we must establish in order to communicate our perceptions to each other. When someone's idios kosmos diverges too greatly from the koinos kosmos, we tend to treat that person as defective in some way. It is not insignificant that idios is the root of the English "idiot."