Monday, November 12, 2007

To What Extent is Sense Perception an Accurate way of Knowing?

I believe that sense perception is a pretty accurate way of knowing because afterall, we can only taste, smell, hear, touch and see things around us so we must make do with what we are provided with because if we were to not believe in our senses at all then how would one be able to live each day.
Of course our senses may not always be as accurate or 'safe' as we expected because from the "card changing magic trick" which our sight senses immediatly tell us to look out for the card changing but infact whilst the so called "trick" was being performed, the whole stage and setting was changed which during most of the time, I myself could not notice. This brings highlights the harsh reality as to wether we can really trust our sense perception because by switching the situation with something in our daily lives,the outcome could be disasterous or even tradgic. The other astonishing point is that we can focus so hard that we shut out other senses which could give a more accurate evaluation of the situation, because in the video, after watching through the second time, the noise made by the crew in the background is actually quite obvious but because we focus on trying to figure out the magic trick, we tend to channel all our attention for the use of one sense and deem other things as insignificant such as the noise.
Overall, I don't think that our sense perceptions are an inaccurate way of knowing because they can be accurate but to a certain degree to how much we focus on something. The point we can take from such videos as the card changing magic trick or the gorilla clip is that yes we can focus and be as "accurate" as possible in a sense, but what it is trying to say is that by focusing so hard, we may tend to shut out our other senses which shows how inaccurate we may be to the 'real picture' which in the card changing magic trick, isn't really the cards that we should be worrying about!

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