started a new more serious draft, enjoy
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Human beings being the intelligent creatures they are tend to think that they see things exactly as they are on a subconscious level, even though they may consciously not believe it. Truth is human beings are part of this world that we live in and are, like any other animal, a large mass of chemical reactions. Which brings me to the quote on which this essay is based upon: ‘we see and understand things not as they are but as we are’. The quote suggests that human beings do not actually see, hear, understand, or simply perceive anything as it truly is but it is put up to the bias of the human mind and its limits. Another question that arises now is the question of how these biases are formed and if they are all the same in each human being. The most probable answer is that each human being has his or her own biases to everything thanks to their experiences in life and their mentality.
One example of differing perceptions of the same thing is the argument of the consequentialist verses the opportunist. Two people walking down a road see a dog laying in the middle of the road. One person is an opportunist and perceives the situation as an opportunity to do something good and save the dog from being run over. The second person does not object and helps him move the dog. As they are moving him, the dog dies. The second person, being a consequentialist , perceives the whole situation as negative since the end result was the dog dieing and feels great remorse for what he has done. The opportunist sees the situation as an opportunity that he seized, and that what they meant to do was to save the dog therefore guilt should not be theirs to feel. Both of these people have good rational arguments as to how the situation should be remembered, but logic will not move either of them because that is who they are, not what the situation is. The truth of the matter is if they had not moved the dog then someone coming down the road in their car might notice the dog at the last second and swerve off, by moving the dog they have saved said person. Instead of thinking this they both obsess about the death of the dog.
Physical perception can also be interpreted by the brain unconsciously differently then it truly is. For example, our eyes can only see a certain small range of the electromagnetic spectrum. Our ears only hear from 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz. Our sense of touch is different on our hands then on our backs. How can we therefore assume; something to truly look the way we are seeing, a sound to be heard exactly how it truly is, to know what the real feeling of something is whether it be what we feel when it comes into contact with our backs, or whether it comes into contact with our fingers. Scientists have no way of proving that colors really are the way they are perceived. For example, scientists still cannot scientifically prove that the way one person sees the color blue is the same way another person sees the color blue. One persons blue may be another persons red. verbally we call them the same thing because that is what we have been taught ever since we came upon the concept of color.
Human perception can also overrule basic logical thought making the person believe something that logically is not true at all. For example, a man and his grandson are talking about politics. The man feels like he knows more then the boy not because he is obnoxious but that is what his mind is telling him because of the age difference. The man argues that George bush has made it so that mortgage interest cannot be claimed as a tax deductable in the USA. The boy argues that this is not true. The argument ends with both of them walking away with the same opinion that they walked in with. A few months later they have the same argument but this time the boy has proof. He tells his grandfather that he has made a claim on his mortgage interest as a deductable and has official papers to prove it, the grandfather is forced to believe him through rational thought. A few weeks later the man opens the argument again with his grandson and, even though the son has proof, argues that the claim still cannot be made. The man has not suffered any mental disabilities and remembers and acknowledges the boys proof, yet he continues to hold on to his belief.