Are your perceptual faculties reliable? How do you know that? Prove it! What other evidence (from others, from science, from ?) could you use to support your claim?
What examples can you provide or reference of people who believed their perception was fine, but who clearly were impaired? (House M.D. often has great examples of this; Oliver Sachs has written many excellent books which often involve sensory impairment and brain confusion; there are many examples discussed in the fields of psychology, criminal justice, cognitive science, etc.). Go find some and discuss.
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Your perceptual faculties are not always reliable. I know this because there are people in the world who can see things that other people can't. In the movie A Beautiful Mind, which was based on a true story, the main character is diagnosed with schizophrenia. He believes that the government has hired him to decode hidden messages in different documents. His mind is playing tricks on him because the people who wanted him to decode the messages were really just figments of his imagination. This man went through many years of his life where he did not function normally because many people he met were not real. Being schizophrenic would cause your perceptual faculties to not be reliable.
ReplyDeleteThere is a particular building in Louisville that for Christmas every year lights up red and green. Last year I was in town and two friends were excited at the prospect of showing me the building. We get there, and Friend 1 exclaims, "What! It's not lit up this year!" Friend 2 and I exchange glances, having clearly been able to perceive a Christmas building. Awkward seconds pass before I interject with my remembrance of a simple fact, "Friend 1, you're color blind".
ReplyDeleteIn this story, Friend 1 demonstrates how his perception of the world is different and what most people would call inaccurate. In addition, he is an exemplary model for memory failure, as he truly thought that in past years he had seen the red and green lights on the building, though of course, he has been red/green color blind his entire life.
I have experienced examples of my perceptual faculties not being reliable. One example occurred many years ago when I needed to have surgery on my right hand. Secons after the doctor injected a drug in my IV, I noticed that the walls were melting....obviously, they were not but it was a result of the drug that was being administered. I distinctly recall attempting to draw the Dr.s attention to this "fact" to which he responded with a laugh and assured me it was the result of the drug. Other examples have occurred while I was in between the dreaming and waking state - On one occassion, I responded to my son's question which I clearly heard him ask, however, my son was not home at that time so obviously, he did not ask the question that I was sure that I heard. An example that I could use to demonstrate that perception can be flawed is the "phantom limb" scenario. Individuals that have lost limbs often continue to feel sensation and "usage" even though the limb is no longer attached.
ReplyDeleteI have a friend who is color blind. His perception of things is different from mine based on color. There have been a number of instenses where he specifically asks what color something in a textbook is, what color a marker is, or what color a presentation template is. Our perceptions are different from each others. Sometimes it's easy and fun to make a joke out of it, but in all seriousness, the perception of his world, in a color context, is much different from the perception of my world. I'll never be able to understand how he perceives certain things when it comes to certain colors.
ReplyDeleteAssuming that you are not color blind, mentally ill, dyslexic, under the influence of psychotropic drugs, or otherwise unaffected by a perceptually altering condition, then yes your perceptual faculties are usually reliable. Usually reliable means we won’t be 100% accurate all the time with our perceptions. Senses can deceive us occasionally but we can usually recognize that glitch when it happens, or at least realize it retrospectively. The other night I was at home with my mom and we were at opposite ends of the house. A dog barked outside and my mom asked me what I wanted. I told her I hadn’t said anything. Somehow she perceived the bark to be me calling out “mom!” when really it was just some muffled dog barking from outside. But the point is that you can eventually figure out when your senses are wrong.
ReplyDeleteSometimes your reasoning and better judgment will cause you to believe that a perception of yours is NOT reliable. For instance, if you happen to perceive or see that the walls are melting after you’ve just been injected with anesthetics, then you might reason that your vision was being directly affected by the drug- and therefore unreliable. This is one way to know whether or not we can trust our perceptions. We have the ability to evaluate whether or not our own senses seem correct. As long as you can evaluate the plausibility of your senses you can usually determine whether or not any given perception is accurate or false. So when you evaluate your sensory perception and it seems to fit appropriately and congruently within the context in which you are hearing, seeing, smelling, etc, and you cannot find anything unusual about it that would go against your better reason, then you have a reliable perception.
My friend has a little 8 year old that is color blind. When he gets up in the morining for school he has to get dress and when he comes down for school she has to send him back up and she goes to help him pick out colors that match. You mite say why dont she lay his clothes out for him. He wont let her because he says thats for baby's and he is a big boy. Throught his eyes he sees colors not the same way we do.
ReplyDeleteMichael Lancaster
I am reliable in my facilities because I would base my perceptual view on common consensus. If I asked if a nearby basket is white to a person who is not color blind, they would agree it is white. If I would ask someone who is color blind, they would also agree the basket is white. I will confirm my perception of the basket as white because that is the agreement of those around me. Yet, if I would ask a Spaniard if the basket is white, they would respond that the basket is blanca. To a Frenchman, it would be blanche. To a German it would be weiß. Yet, all of these words convey the same meaning and therefore serve to further confirm my perceptions. Perception is called into doubt when it is not confirmed but contested by those around me. Those situations make it difficult to determine which perception is “true”. So we will rely on the majority view, unless given reason to believe differently. For example, after Columbus discovered the New World, there were some who still believed the world was flat. Only after Columbus’ contempories supported his claims and others believed the world was not flat, did the majority finally catch on.
ReplyDeleteMany perceptions are based on majority decision and therefore can be either totally true or totally false. Only after the new idea becomes accepted as truth can the perception change.
I do not think that people’s perceptual faculties are 100% reliable. For example, I argued with one of my friends about the color of a jacket that I had. He initially said that it was brown and I told him that it was green. The jacket is a darker color that I perceive to be green. We stopped arguing because we both realized we were not going to convince one another of the color. Neither of us is colorblind either. We asked a couple other people what color they thought it was and three or four said it was green but said that they could kind of see how he thought it could be brown. The point is that in a certain situation if someone had to answer a question of some sort about a color or something else, their perception may nor be reliable to them. They may have no clue why they would have gotten the answer wrong. Science has proven certain things to be true. If we perceive something that has been proven scientifically or mathematically true then it is easier to say that our perceptions are reliable. For instance, 2 + 2 = 4. If I am asked to add 2 + 2 I would say 4. It is proven to be true so no one can say that it is justifiably say that it is wrong.
ReplyDeleteI have a very close family friend that is not only color blind but has very bad depth perception. He is around my parents’ age and although he is slightly aware that he has vision problems, he has not fully come to terms with it. He very often confuses black and blues and that was his first indication that his perception was different than mine, and something may be wrong. Although he can see some color he has a difference in color perception show especially when he mix matches his clothes! He just recently stopped driving also because his depth perception is very off. He has had a few small accidents from not accurately perceiving the area around him. Everyone can have differences in their visual perception, and the differences we see can play tricks on us.
ReplyDeleteI have a friend on the baseball team that is colorblind and what he sees in baseball is sometimes different than what the rest of the team does. Many times we will talk about picking up the seems if it is a curveball, fastball, or change-up. He cannot pick up any of the seems, so he is basically just going up and guessing if it is going to be offspeed or not. He is also one of our best hitters believe or not, but he talks about he perception of the pitcher has to do a lot on how he guesses. Also, he precieves the situation and what might a pitcher throw in this count. So dispite him not being able to actually see what is coming at him his perception of the surroundings and situation actually make up for him not picking up the seems of the baseball.
ReplyDeleteI do not believe that one's perceptual faculties can always be reliable. In the movie 23 with Jim Carrey, the main character plays a dog catcher. He is bitten by a dog one day and his wife buys him a detective book with a novel about the mystery of the number 23. He then starts to find many coincidences in his own life, and starts looking for the author because he believes the book is about his own life. Also, the movie A Beautiful Mind- Russell Crowe plays a schizophrenic man who hallucinates and has friends who do not exist- these friends tell him to do things and he can not distinguish that they are not real. In both of these situations, one's perceptual faculties are not reliable. Who's to say that anyone can ever really know for sure if they're own perceptual faculties are reliable? One can believe, but they can never really know.
ReplyDeleteI would say that sometimes your perception can be skewed. I remember in psychology that we talked about phantom limb syndrome. This is when a person has a limb amputated, but still has the feeling as if the limb is still attached. Obviously the person doesn’t have a limb, but they perceive as if they did have an arm or leg that was removed.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Hannah, I believe it depends are your mental state whether or not your perceptual faculties are reliable. I think a lot of the time they can be depending on the circumstances. This may very from person to person and also from our own knowledge and life experiences. Much of the time I think mine have been reliable, however, I can also think of times when it has not. I don't know if this is something we can ever really know.
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