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Many philosophers, such for instance, Plato or Descartes believed that reality exists only in our consciousness, which means that we mostly base our judgment on what we can perceive by means of the five senses: vision, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. The question arises whether these guides are reliable. Many experiments, which have recently been conducted by psychologists, prove that under certain circumstances our senses may delude us. The main reason for is that a human being often predefined what he or she wants to see or hear, and pays no attention to the information the senses give. Thus, it is necessary to understand when we should trust our senses and to what extent.
The five common senses are used by the consciousness to understand different aspects of our environment. Through this interaction between the senses, we are able to derive an integrated picture of our environment, which we then proceed to call reality. Yet, it should be pointed out that a human being usually gives preference only to one of the five senses, particularly, to vision, while the information received by other sensors is often disregarded. As a result, the picture that we perceive may be distorted or even entirely wrong. Overall, we seldom ask ourselves whether our senses are telling us the truth. However, we experience something, which may question the validity of the data, obtained by the five senses. This may happen when we perceive something counterintuitive- something against our expectations. The question then becomes one of determining whether to trust our senses completely or not, or just to trust them partially. I will draw several examples from my experiences to clarify it.
Some time ago, I was conducting a biology experiment in the laboratory. It was supposed to determine the relative amount of vitamin c concentrate in a homogenate. This particular experiment involved adding approximately 1 ml of vitamin c solution to a test tube. In the meantime, four replicate test tubes, each containing 1 ml of vitamin c, were set up. Through various lab processes, the vitamin C concentration was supposed to influence the number of iodine drops b changing the color to black of the homogenate solution. In essence, the change of color is an indication of the hydrolysis of starch. The presence of starch shows up as a color change from white to blue black. However, in my experiment, there was no color change. I added a few more drops of iodine, thinking that maybe my iodine concentration was low. Nothing happened. I stared at the apparatus in surprise. Under ordinary circumstances, I would have drawn the logical conclusion that there was no starch in the food sample, but this was different. I had specifically added a few grams of starch into the food sample, and my experiment had been more a test of how rapidly the color change would occur, rather than whether or not it would occur. I rechecked all the labels for the chemicals that I had used. They were the right ones. Thinking about the procedure I had used, there was only one way that the experiment could have gone so wrong. Somehow, I must have added disproportionately huge amounts of the base powder used to increase the amount of reagent. The only way this could have happened was if somehow my eyes had miscalculated the amount I was putting into the test tubes. From this experience I realized we can set up all the apparatus in the laboratory, and follow all the instructions for the experiment, and still be surprised by the results. It shows our lack of knowledge about what our expected results really entail. This same experience was described by Rene Descartes, a philosopher. He contended that we could use our senses to tell whether a candle is in solid or molten form. That is an observation. Yet, it does not mean that we understand the nature of the wax. In order to understand the nature of any observation, we have to incorporate our judgment and interpretation (James, 1997). This experiment proves that what we may believe to be absolute truth is often a misconception. Additionally, it is quite possible for us to conclude that we should use all of our senses in order to get a full picture of reality; if we rely only on vision or hearing, we can fall into an error. In fact, we can always trust our senses but they are often affected by our predefined expectations.
As I thought about all this, I realized that our senses sometimes fail us and thus we should not trust them absolutely but sometimes. This means as from my example that we should not be sure, when our senses take the center stage especially when it calls for crucial decisions to be made. They probably do fail us more often than we realize. As a rule, these failures are so inconsequential that we do not even notice them. It takes a conclusive observation like that one in the laboratory to cast doubt on what our senses are telling us. Yet when we do start doubting, we encounter all sorts of questions about the very essence of what we had previously assumed to be facts. It is important to know when to trust our senses completely, and when to resort to other means of verifying our perceptions. Our level of sensory alertness varies from one person to the next. Some people naturally are more alert than others are. For instance, many people are incapacitated and they require artificial aids in order to function normally. These aids include spectacles, hearing aids and so on. A person wearing spectacles knows that his eyes cannot be trusted to give a clear vision. He or she knows that relying on the eyes alone could cost him, one way, or another. The same thing occurs to people needing hearing aids. Nevertheless, what should those people do whose natural senses are considered “normal”? Should they trust them explicitly?
As we grow older, the natural tendency is for the senses to deteriorate. The rate at which this deterioration occurs varies amongst individuals. It also varies from one sense to the other. For example, a certain individual may lose his eyesight faster than his hearing. The problem is that sometimes this deterioration creeps up on the individual so suddenly that he or she does not realize it until the problem is well advanced. So when should we start seeking second opinions, so to say, on the feedback that our senses are yielding? Is there an age beyond which our senses just can no longer be trusted as before? There is no straight answer to this query, but as a general guideline, going for periodical medical checkups may help identify the problems well in advance. And once a sensory problem is identified, that particular sense will have to be trusted subjectively- cognizant of its capabilities.
Some career fields naturally incorporate artificial aids to increase the efficacy of the natural senses. Pilots, for example, have to use radars and other sensors to navigate their flight paths. This by itself is a testimony to the fact that our physical senses have limitations, beyond which they need reinforcements. For a pilot, the question of whether or not to use the artificial aids never arises. Too much is at stake, including other lives, should he make a fatal mistake. Thus, for the extent that a pilot is airborne, he is trained to use a combination of both the physical senses and the artificial aids. In other words, that career field never puts complete trust on the physical senses alone. What is perceived by the physical senses has to be confirmed by a host of other gadgets at the pilot’s disposal, before the pilot reacts to the perceptions (Lyndon).
Aviation and all other specialized fields that, by default, utilize sensory “boosters”, tend to have less of a contention with the question of when to trust the senses. But in our normal, day to day life, the question does arise often. Are there situations when we can completely trust our senses, and others when we can only trust the senses a bit, and still others when we simply can not trust them at all? Probably, it would be more prudent to say that to a certain degree, all of them may be unreliable, in this case, it is of crucial importance to be unbiased, because very often we trust only one or two of our senses and ignore the rest of them.
Arts present a greyer area about our senses. When visiting an art gallery some time ago, I came across a painting at which almost everybody else was gazing. It was a painting of a hilly landscape, complete with the green in the foreground and the bluish tinges of the background. I gave the painting a cursory glance and moved on. There was no emotional reaction in me about the painting. However, a few feet along the gallery’s walls, I came across another landscape painting and immediately stopped. No one else seemed to take interest in it, but this picture captured my complete attention. At that moment, I started thinking about senses in relation to art. If I had been asked then, I would have declared this second painting as the best in the gallery. Almost everybody else would have disagreed. Thinking about it, I realized that what I was feeling convinced about was not an empirical observation of my surroundings, but rather an analysis of my own inner feelings. Hence, if I said that the second painting was a masterpiece, I would actually be telling the truth about myself, which obviously was dependent on my sense, rather than the truth about the painting. Similarly, even if everybody else disagreed with me about the paintings, their statements would still be true, since they would all be describing the truths about their own senses. Thus, as long as people are using art to describe themselves, their senses can always be trusted. However, if they are describing the environment around them, their senses cannot be trusted at all. Senses therefore can be said to be greatly influenced by variable circumstances dependent on each individual; thus while one individual maybe influenced by one item this may not necessarily hold true for another one. Our feelings are completely independent and many times unpredictable. In this respect, I would like to say that our perception of reality is strongly influenced by our likings and dislikes. The information, which is based on subjective evaluation, cannot be fully trustworthy. In the vast majority of cases, our senses are selective; we may overlook the most obvious things just because we do not want them to see. Thus, we may say that on such conditions we should not put much trust in our senses.
From the above examples, it is clear that when to trust our senses is dependent on the context. In addition to that, it is strongly affected by our frame of mind. As already implied, what we perceive and finally understand about our environment is the product of our senses, our mind, and our experience, interacting together. It is not possible to exclude our personalities from our perceptions. This is especially so in such fields as art, where our perceptions mostly rely on the emotions that our senses provoke in us.
Works cited
Hvasing (N.D.). Visual art and truth. 2009.
James Card 1997 Descartes’ view of Sense Perception. 2009. Web.
Poetry magic (N.D.) Truth in mathematics. 2009. Web.
Iep (N.D.) Truth. 2009. Web.
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