Sensory, Essay Example

The acquisition of knowledge is dependent the ability to acquire data using both perception and senses. However, many thinkers and philosophers have in the past questioned the precise accuracy of this information. All sensory information is inaccurate. (Smith,2002)

They are inaccurate to the degree in which spatial and other physical relationships change between the subject and the object. This perspectival variation occurs when the object changes its size or shape due to the subject’s perception of the object and not the object in itself changing in reality. If one walks away from a table it becomes smaller but, the table itself does not change.

There is also the element of one’s sensory information being an imperfect coincidence between reality and appearance. (Smith,2002) Reality has an illusionary aspect to it that has been caused by ones’ inaccurate sensory information. Submerge an object, In a glass f water the object first appears bend and larger. This illusionary aspect of sensory information lends one to the conclusion that it is all in the mind’s eye.

Ones’ sensory information thoroughly collapses including time in the factor. Yet the occurrence of an event and, the, perception of it are not always congruent. Lightning striking and the perception of its light and sound are not a reflection of reality because all these elements arrive at different times.

Individuals lives in their own subjective reality. (McDowell,1994) Nature versus nurture or genetic inheritance versus environmental factors in terms of sensory information only lends itself to one answer, both.The interpretation of the world via a shared system of internal symbols and system of representation. How one deduces the existence/nature of an object/subject with sensory information will differ due to the difference in both the nature and nurture of individuals. (McDowell,1994) This is where the question of the subject objects relationship occurs. Sounds, smells, tastes and colors are a completely based on an internal assessment and reality. (McDowell,1994) It is by pure consensus that we agree to these things. To clarify, we agree a rose is red, and it smells nice. The best way to explain this is by using an example.

Two people who are in different professions are blind folded in a room. One is an office nerd who has never worked outside this setting. The other is the farmer who grew up in a rural area with no access to technology. The farmer has been told to identify an object it happens to be an ipad. He concludes it is a piece of glass. The office worker has been given has been given a pair of calipers he concluded they are a type of scissors. Then each of them has given the others objects, and they are able to guess what they are. The office worker knew it was an ipad because these are objects he works with nurture. The same is true of the farmer. How we interpret the sensory information we receive is a combination of both the internal understanding of that information as well as what we has been nurtured to understand what that information means.

In conclusion, sensory information though has a level of accuracy. As discussed above it has a large proportion of inaccuracy. Our ability to interpret this sensory information has influenced by how we have nurtured. Reason too has its limitations however when brought together with a high level of consensus we can have a unified understanding and interpretation of the reality around us.

References

Smith, A. D., 2002. The Problem of Perception, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

McDowell, John, 1994. Mind and World, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.