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 naive 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 naive
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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