Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Perception---Deception


Are the lines straight or slanted?
Obviously at first glance, your mind is telling you that the lines are slanted. But after a close examination, you could probably tell that the lines are actually straight. This is a perfect example of your perception decieving you. I would love to say that perception is better and more important as a source of knowledge than reason, and I do believe that to a certain extent, however I realize that your perception can be false. Before our tok class I would have easily argued how great your perception is, however after all the optical illusions, I am not so sure. I still believe that you need to percieve something before you can use your reason to rationalize it, however without your reason, you would believe false things. If I didn't reason that the lines are actually straight, I would have believed that they were slanted, because that is what my perception told me. So which is really better? I think you need both to work together or it will be nearly impossible to gain true knowledge.

1 comment:

  1. Kind of like trying to stand on one leg, I think. It can be done but it's less tiring and a lot easier with two. Of course if you want to sit, it's better to have 3 or 4 legs on a chair. Good thing we have two more ways of knowing to build our knowledge on.

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