Percieved Reality

4 Commentsby   |  10.04.10  |  Announcements

This seems to be a topic that many people have decided to run with, so I think I'll just go ahead and throw my 2 cents in. The only way an individual can know something is through his or her perception, if it is not percieved to be applicable or relevant it is not acted on, and the respective oposite is true as well. How do we know there is a chair in the middle of the walkway? Because we see it, and act accordingly to not trip over it. Perception is an intellectual sense. Perception is why your freind gets mad at you when your phone dies in the middle of a conversation because they think you hung up. It is percieved that you hung up, and even though it is not particularly "real", the consequence of them becoming angry is very real. Just as, for a more dramatic example, the case of "fanatics" knowing that God told them that it is allright to comit mass suicides or participate in pedophilism. They percieve that they are told to do something, and wether or not they are actually told to do it, the consequences of them being told that are very very real. There are many many more examples that could be mentioned, but people act on what they think adn percieve, that is a fact, and actions are very real to those around you, with the conept of the matrix excluded. 

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4 Comments

  1. Alyssa Bowyer
    1:11 pm, 10.04.10

    To me you are making it sound like you believe that perceived reality it, in essence, true reality. As if you are making the point of someone saying, “This is how I see it, and so that is the way it is.”and that being truth. I disagree. I agree that each person has their own way of seeing something, which is their perception. However, our perception constantly changes. As someone else shows us true reality or we stumble upon it. So our perception cannot always reality.

  2. Danielle Urias
    1:14 pm, 10.04.10

    So what you’re saying is perception is reality. It is almost irrelevant what is really out there, because that is not what most people act on. I find this point of view interesting. I would argue the importance of trying to understand that which is closest to reality, but you definitely make a strong point.

    Unfortunately, I’m not too fond of it. If people like pedophiles or fanatics truly believe their perception is reality and act accordingly, I see the wisdom in approaching them with a phenomenological mindset. However, in order to have any hope in helping these people change for the better, they must be taught that there is a separate reality they are ignorant of. I mean, if they are never told their reality is different from that of most of the rest of society, is there any hope that they will ever change?

  3. Stephanie Bell
    1:36 pm, 10.04.10

    Wait. So if perception is reality what happens with the phantom limb? It is not actually there but you perceive it to be there. And what about when you perceive someone fits a certain category and it turns out to be wrong? If I always took my perceptions as reality, I would not be friends with my best friend. When she moved into the dorm I perceived that she was a stuck-up hick because she was wearing a camouflage hat and cowboy boots, and where I am from that meant stuck-up hick. It turns out she likes to ride horses and do stuff where her outfit would make sense. So I guess what I am saying is just because your brain tell you something is what it is does not make it what it is.

  4. Ian Robertson
    1:49 pm, 10.04.10

    The idea of perception vs reality is such a tired debate, but one that modern science and philosophy likes to drag us into. I myself would argue that our senses is our only way to understand the world. Any information we do get is from our senses, so even pure rational depends on the senses for input. Life ends up being our best shot anyways, no human has ever got it right on their own. Our perception is a best guess, and we can never separate ourselves from our bodies, so even if senses can be fooled we can overcome that if we try, and if not we did our best.

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