Reality Is Perception Essay, Research Paper

Reality Is Perception

Human reality is full of physical objects but how humans perceive these

objects is completely objective, depending on the person and there senses.

Perception of physical objects cannot occur without other objects that allow one

to perceive these manifestations in the first place. When a sentient being

acknowledges that they “exist in a world of physical objects”, they also confirm

that their sense perception functions to an extent which allows them to reason,

even to a small degree, their physical existence.

What is a physical object? Does a physical object have to be something

you can see, touch, feel, taste, or smell or can a physical object exist without

one being able to confirm its existence? Is the sensory perception of a fly

wrong just because it has over a 1000 eyes or is the way humans view the world

incorrect because we do not? A blind man can still help a person distinguish a

colour because no one perception is ever totally interpreted by only one sensory

organ. Many other animals on earth do not just rely on there sight for

information about their world. For instance fish in totally dark areas of the

ocean have no eyes and yet can still maneuver around in there environment by

sensing ripples in their area with special sense organs on their body. Birds

also seem to use the magnetic lines of the earth to navigate south for the

winter each year. It would be foolish to make the statement that all sensory

perception of the world is circumspect and is exactly the same for all creatures.

All animals on the planet earth live in a hermeneutic spiral meaning

that we all live in the past. Humans as with other animals can only sense a

cause after it has made an effect. The assumption is made that if we sense an

effect there must therefore be a cause, which leads to a na?ve realism of

perception. As well, with sensory perception there is a large amount of

extraneous information such as emotional and ideological that causes

interference as to how we interpret the information received. This

misinterpretation can happen from the time an action is made to the time when we

seem to perceive the action. This can be seen for instance when at a baseball

game the batter bats a home run and only after a second or two you hear the

crack of the bat on the ball. This can be explained because the speed of light

which allows you to see the batter hitting the ball is much faster than the

speed of sound. Of course there is always the chance that our sense organs can

deceive us. For instance when the moon is on the horizon is looks a lot bigger

than when it is seen high up in the sky. As for humans all perception is

relative to the surroundings because for instance at night humans can see

objects like trees, stars, etc. better when we look at these things at a an

angle with the corner of our eyes. During the day however things are seen

better when looking straight at them, this phenomenon has been explained with

the use of rods/cones in our eyes. Rods are sensitive to dim light and are

important in black/white vision and the detection of motion and are primarily

located toward the corners of the eyes hence their value in night vision. Cones

are responsible for colour vision and for the perception of bright images.

The average person expresses what he believes is perception; referred to

as na?ve realism:

1. I live in a world of physical objects.

2. I know this through sense perception.

3. Physical objects exist independently of my perception.

4. My claims about their reality are usually correct.

5. Sense impressions are caused by the objects.

Sense perception all comes down to being able to exist in a world we know

nothing about and understanding that certain actions will achieve certain goals.

As long as these goals are achievable through what we believe to be reality than

nothing else really matters. Therefore, perception that allows one to exist in

a world of physical objects is all that a person wanting to exist really needs.

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