> The place we live, planet earth?
I see each of us, and in turn our communities, living in parts of planet Earth, and to my underlying point, having, similar to our dictionary meanings[0,1], varied and overlapping views. Some of these terms' meanings have a narrow view and another a wide one, for instance: 1) "A particular group of living things", then "All that relates to a particular sphere of activity", and 2) "Human and social interaction", then "A particular region or group of countries", and 3) "The Earth", then "The Universe", and 4) "Human collective existence", then "Existence in general.". Take for example a derived term, 'worldview'. Would this necessarily have something to do with Earth? Would it better fit "An individual or group perspective or social setting" and "Age, era"?
Etymologically, `world` comes from Proto-Germanic weraz + aldiz (man, husband + age, generation, lifetime), and before that Proto-Indo-European wiHrós + h₂el. These terms meant to our linguistic ancestors, "hunt, warrior, hero" + “to raise, feed, nourish”. We would still have `Earth`, `Universe`, `place`, etc to use if we focused `world` on a concept more to do with something emerging from experience, as it seems to in logic (a subset of logic that, imho, has well-founded roots). I believe logically it benefits a mind to make this conceptual leap so as to capably see multiple points of view and to recognize limits and strengths in any particular one or group within a whole.
Paradoxically, the many are the one, so to speak, or whole is its parts (ping Da Vinci). Some minds break on this point, some bend around it. Every report I have ever seen comes from some point of view.
0: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/world
1: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/world