Journal Entry #3: Sense Perception

How much can we rely on our senses to comprehend and interpret the world around us? Often our senses must be combined with our intellectual faculties or our sense of reason and logic to put certain things that we sense into context or perspective. For example, looking at a painting of a boat, our brain can differentiate between actually being set in the place depicted by the painting, and simply staring at a portrait of it. We have to incorporate all of our senses and mental faculties to maximize the depth of our interpretation of things around us, but paradoxically all of these senses and interpretations become entirely subjective.

What does this mean? If two people stare at an object in the same place at the same time from the same position are they then seeing the same thing? Ultimately, they are staring at the same object, but they do not see it as the same object. Our minds process different things in different ways simply because our DNA is coded differently and we are all unique in that respect. This centers around the concept of common sense realism, whereby we base our perception and understanding of what we see as subjective beings.

In conclusion, it can be argued that we are forced to rely on our senses because it is in our human nature – we are unable to block out the things we see and judgments we make without evoking a sense of insecurity. However, it would be foolish to base everything on our senses – it is easy for us to be deceived and often scientific reasoning is more effective in helping us to rationalize the world around us.