To what extent is sense perception an accurate way of knowing?

With the red-tinted glasses experiment from Sophie’s World as an example, we can say that what our mind learns from our five senses doesn’t necessarily have to be the truth. Whether we think our senses are telling us the truth is up to our personal judgment.

I think that my senses are an accurate way of knowing, because life would be impossible if we don’t have any of them. The gorilla video experiment in TOK lesson didn’t change my view on the reliability of our senses. We weren’t able to spot the gorilla because we weren’t concentrating, which was due to our mind thinking to focus on the basketball. When we focus, it’s not our senses that are doing so but our brain. The image of the gorilla would have been seen by our sight, but our mind blocked it out. Basically, our brain controls our senses. Although I have to admit that we focused our eyes on the ball because we listened to Ms Woollett. It is very scary how sometimes we just take orders that are aimed to make us not notice some truths, without even knowing so. Another example, from my everyday life, is that I don’t hear what someone is saying to me when I concentrate on watching television. What that person says would sound like some slurred up sound to me, instead of words that have meanings. Again, it was because I diverted my mind on something else.

Of course, people may argue that our senses and the brain work together for us to “experience”, and so it can be our senses’ fault. But if we don’t rely on our senses, how else can we learn things? There is no other way, so I say our senses are our most accurate way of knowing.