Friday, February 16, 2007
Is Perception Reality?
By reading the pages on this blog and seeking meaning from them, you did not directly perceive the blog...
Now go back to the homepage of this blog and don't have read the words but attempt to perceive it without making any abstractions. Silly little humans are always guilty of attempting to measure things. What is perception other than a measurement? What if measurement never show the reality, but only an abstraction of it (and maybe even a biased one)?
Now go back to the homepage of this blog a third time and ask yourself what you should do if you did read the words, infer meaning and become emotional? Did not the light of my monitor strike my retinas? If not, then I have perceived the wisdom of the blog only indirectly. However, if the monitor's glow illuminated my retinas, then that was direct perception.
Indirectly, If I determine that someone thought up some idea which they codified in their own blog, who could question there conclusions and would it be based on analysis of reality or simply their perception of reality?
I must run in the opposite direction of anything that feels like reality and instead prefer to understand perceptions. It is a fact, and I know it, but only because I've had the direct perception of my perception while awake. At least, I perceive that I am awake but have no facts that can prove it and therefore have taken the appropriate first steps. I only hope that folks such as JT don't perceive that I am losing it...
| | View blog reactionsNow go back to the homepage of this blog and don't have read the words but attempt to perceive it without making any abstractions. Silly little humans are always guilty of attempting to measure things. What is perception other than a measurement? What if measurement never show the reality, but only an abstraction of it (and maybe even a biased one)?
Now go back to the homepage of this blog a third time and ask yourself what you should do if you did read the words, infer meaning and become emotional? Did not the light of my monitor strike my retinas? If not, then I have perceived the wisdom of the blog only indirectly. However, if the monitor's glow illuminated my retinas, then that was direct perception.
Indirectly, If I determine that someone thought up some idea which they codified in their own blog, who could question there conclusions and would it be based on analysis of reality or simply their perception of reality?
I must run in the opposite direction of anything that feels like reality and instead prefer to understand perceptions. It is a fact, and I know it, but only because I've had the direct perception of my perception while awake. At least, I perceive that I am awake but have no facts that can prove it and therefore have taken the appropriate first steps. I only hope that folks such as JT don't perceive that I am losing it...
