Essay/Term paper: Reality is perception

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Philosophy

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 naïve 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 naïve 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.