perception.complete

8/4/2019 Perception.complete

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PERCEPTION A Way Of Knowing



‘He who has been bitten by a snake fears a piece

of string’

Persian proverb



Main points of perception

• The Mind plays an active role in Perception.

• That there remains a need for a “world outthere”, even with the subjective turn in

experience, i.e. have a right to an option- to haveones own view- also not a guarantee that notevery option is right.

• THAT FROM THE STUDY OF PERCEPTIONKNOWLEGDE ISSUES EMERGE ( new unanswered problems emerge)



• A short explanation goes something like this.• When we look at an object, we can normally

see both fine detail and coarse detail.

• However when we are close, the fine detail will dominate, and when we are further away, we lose the fine detail, and see more of thecoarse detail.



• Both of the faces you see above are hybrids -each face is actually a combination of two faces.

• The left hand face shows an angry women infine detail, but within the picture there is alsocoarse detail of the calm face. Move away, and

you lose the fine (angry) detail, and just see thecoarse (calm) detail.• The right hand face shows the calm face in fine

detail, and the angry face in coarse detail.• This is based on work by Dr Aude Oliva (MIT)

and Dr Philippe Schyns (University of Glasgow).



Perception, a process by whichorganisms interpret and organize

sensation to produce a meaningful

experience of the world .



• Sensation usually refers to the immediate,relatively unprocessed result of stimulation of sensory receptors in the eyes, ears, nose, tongue,or skin.

• Perception, on the other hand, better describesone‟s ultimate experience of the world andtypically involves further processing of sensory input.

• In practice, sensation and perception are virtually impossible to separate, because they are part of one continuous process.



The common understanding of

PerceptionThere is an awareness of the external world; this is

intuitive , direct & without doubt; it is variable inquality and accuracy, selection and degree;perception yields knowledge of objects &properties of things.

Through perception Judgments are made and

truth claims are tested.



We perceive the world through our 5 senses.

Our 5 senses are:

• Sight

• Hearing• Touch

• Smell

• Taste



Sense Perception is an important

dimension of our understanding of the

World

The channel of communication

between ourselves and the outside world

Its function and scope should beexamined and critically evaluated



There are differing views on the role of our

five senses towards the acquisition of

knowledge

• Common-Sense Realism: Perception is a

passive and relatively straightforward processwhich gives us an accurate picture of reality



Common Sense Realism

The way we perceive the world

mirrors the way the world is



Sense perception is the

active, selective and

interpretive process of

recording or becoming

conscious of the external

world



• Perception can be thought of consisting of twodistinct parts

• Sensation: The part provided by the worldaround us

• Interpretation: The part provided by our minds



Questions to Discuss

1. To what extent do our senses give usknowledge of the world as it really is?

2. What role does what we expect to see, or areused to seeing, play in what we observe?

3. What is meant by the saying „knowledge is the

true organ of sight, not the eyes‟? 4. Do you think perception is a more important

source of knowledge in some subjects ratherthan others?



Supporting the role of perception -

Direct Perception• Some people would say that it is not a form of thinking, in that one's ideas do not affect theprocess. Perception is automatic and independentof will. In this view perception is viewed as

objective.

• Direct Realism Theory of perception according which we perceive material objects directly, without the mediation of ideas or sensory representations. Although it is also called "naïve"realism, this view often requires a sophisticateddefense, especially in its attempts to account for theoccurrence of hallucinations and perceptual error.

http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/p2.htm

http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/m2.htm

http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/r9.htm




http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/m2.htm




Challenging the reliability of perception Indirect

Perception

• Idealism Belief that only mental entities are real,so that physical things exist only in the sensethat they are perceived.

• Representationalism Theory of perception

according to which we are aware of objects only through the mediation of the ideas thatrepresent them. Helps explain illusions but leadsto debate about the

• Phenomenonalism Belief that the immediateobjects of sensation provide no evidence for theexistence of anything beyond themselves.Physical objects have no reality apart from ourindividual, private perceptual experiences of them.

http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/e9.htm


http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/i.htm

http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/s4.htm







http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/s4.htm

http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/i.htm





Look at the middle column.



• In psychology and the cognitive sciences,perception is the process of acquiring,interpreting, selecting, and organizing

sensory information.• Methods of studying perception range from

essentially biological or physiological approaches, through psychological

approaches through the philosophy of mind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_science

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physiology

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_mind




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physiology

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_science

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology



• That is, we sense the objective world, but our

sensations map to percepts, and these perceptsare provisional.

• A percept is a philosophical term which roughly means an individual's observation/ perception of

something external to one's self; morespecifically, the resultant of perceiving.

• Just as one object can give rise to multiplepercepts, so an object may fail to give rise to any

percept at all: if the percept has no grounding ina person's experience, the person may literally not perceive it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percept

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percept



• This confusing ambiguity of perception isexploited in human technologies such ascamouflage,

• for example by Peacock butterflies, whose

wings bear eye markings that birds respond toas though they were the eyes of a dangerouspredator

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambiguity

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camouflage

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peacock_(butterfly)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predator

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predator

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peacock_(butterfly)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camouflage

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambiguity



• The eyespots are reminiscent of those on thefeathers of the peacock , hence the name.• The eyespots are exposed when the butterfly is

disturbed by a potential predator (such as

birds) in an antipredator display in which the butterflies flick their wings open and make ahissing noise.

• The open wings create a false perception of

another predator

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peafowl

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perception

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perception

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peafowl



(note how a glance at the image can give theimpression of a cat staring) and the effect is strongenough to deter the predator from eating it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Inachis_io-02_(xndr).jpg



Impossible ring



Rubin's Vase

• This ambiguous figure demonstrates our ability toshift between figure and ground which providesthe basis for the two interpretations of thesefigures



•In this famous ambiguous

figure it is possible to seeeither a young woman oran old woman.•It is a drawing and if youexamine it in detail it willprobably be rather hard to

decide what all of thedifferent componentsrepresent in each of theinterpretations.•Nose, hat, feather, ear,

etc. are identifiable...but you're mind seems to beimposing theseinterpretations on thedrawing rather than beingcompelled by the

"perceptual evidence."



Who is the tallest?



Monks or water fall ????



Portrait or man or

woman with a baby



Perception - Using our

senses

Empiricism – the theory that all

knowledge is derived from sense- experience



What our senses can perceive:-

SIGHT

1% of the electromagnetic spectrum. (We sense

radio waves as sound, infrared as heat, ultraviolet,X-rays and gamma rays as damage to our cells).

SOUNDFrequencies between 16 and 20,000 Hz.



TOUCH

Varies according to the sensitivity of different

parts of our bodies.Two points are perceived asdistinct at a distance of 1mm on our tongues,and 70mm on our backs.

SMELLMolecules that are soluble in our nasal mucus.

TASTE A slight sweetness is better perceived using thetip of the tongue.



red?

How reliable are our senses?

• What is red? Is it the same to all of us?

•

What influences how reliable theyare?

• Which sense is the most reliable?

• How do we know whether we have

the right interpretation of our senses?

• Has the use of ICT blurred thedifferences between simulation and

reality?



Perceiving words

Liddle Mees Muffitt Saa Tonner Tufford Eaton Herr Corzon Waye Winn Alongo Kammer Spyra Unda Sathe Don Beese Eidher

Ann Frydmann Mies Muffitt Taw Way



Little Miss Muffitt Sat on a tuffett Eating her curds and whey

When along came a spider And sat down beside her And frightened Miss Muffitt away

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.alphabet-soup.net/goose/muffet.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.alphabet-soup.net/goose/muffet.html&h=555&w=420&sz=30&tbnid=xmUh8z3SdAsJ:&tbnh=131&tbnw=99&start=42&prev=/images?q=Little+Miss+Muffet&start=40&hl=en&lr=&sa=N



Optical illusions in art have not only

been created in modern times.

The next picture is by Guiseppe

Arcimboldo, an Italian painter of the

16th century.

Perceiving pictures



M. C. Escher Mosaic II , 1957



M.C.Escher Day and night , 1938



What can you see here?



What influences perception?

•Attention (we cannot process everythingthat reaches our senses)

• Convention and cultural aspects (e.g.

right angles, perspective)

•Belief/language (to what extent do we

perceive what is incongruent to our past

experiences?)

•Expectations (familiar sights)



To organize sense perceptions inour brains we require, at the

very least, the following learnedfactors:

• inference

• concepts

• experience

• context

• interpretation



But Knowledge issues

• The issue in perception is “HOW DOES ONECONNECT THE KNOWING SELF WITH THE WORLD, THE OBJECT KNOWN”

• Knowledge is limited by species specific conditionsand „appearance‟ is no longer equal to „reality‟.

• The problem of knowledge can be stated as “ THE WORLD IS NOT AS IT SEEMS TO BE”.

• An epistemologistcal paradox emerges: we cannotdetach ourselves.

• Lets find out why????????



Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

http://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=1&url=http://www.geocities.com/larkspur10/neo/matrixplatoscave.html&ei=rKZ3Ss9Ux4iRBaKg2agG&usg=AFQjCNFyLCIPDqDX8PKMgYqwZpcz9fB99w&sig2=lmrNOJosaMrZWBjvTrSHZg






• Three prisoners have been chained deep inside a cavefor their whole life. They are chained so tightly that allthey ever see or experience are the grotesque shadowscast on a wall from a fire that is burning behind them.This is the only reality they have ever known.

• Then one day, a prisoner is released. He is blinded by the light outside the cave and astonished to see a

completely new reality of people, animals, and objectscasting these shadows into the cave.

• He rushes back to tell the prisoners the news, but to hisdismay, the prisoners do not believe his fantastic stories

of the world outside of the cave.• For the shadows on the wall are the only reality theprisoners have ever known, and therefore, to them, thatis all that will ever exist.”



• The Allegory of the Cave is one of Greek philosopher Plato‟smost well known works. It is an extended allegory, where

humans are depicted as being imprisoned by their bodiesand what they perceive by sight only.

• In the Allegory of the Cave Plato plays with the notion of what would occur if people suddenly encountered the divine

light of the sun, and perceived “true” reality .• Plato sums up his views in an image of ignorant humanity,trapped in the depths and not even aware of its ownlimited perspective.

• The rare individual escapes the limitations of that caveand, through a long, tortuous intellectual journey,discovers a higher realm, a true reality.

http://www.wisegeek.com/who-is-plato.htm

http://www.wisegeek.com/who-is-plato.htm



• Imagine human beings living in an underground, cave likedwelling, with an entrance a long way up, which is both opento the light and as wide as the cave itself.

• They’ve been there since childhood, fixed in the same place,with their necks and legs fettered, able to see only in front of them, because their bonds prevent them from turning theirheads around.

• Light is provided by a fire burning far above and behind them.Also behind them, but on higher ground, there is a path

stretching between them and the fire.• Imagine that along this path a low wall has been built, like the

screen in front of puppeteers above which they show theirpuppets . . .

• Then also imagine that there are people along the wall,

carrying all kinds of artifacts that project above it—statues of people and other animals, made out of stone, wood, and everymaterial. And, as you’d expect, some of the carriers aretalking, and some are silent. (514a1-515a3)

• Who, after all, are the “puppeteers”? Why do they deceive theirfellow cave-dwellers?



Plato’s Cave and The Matrix

• In ‘The Matrix’ the moment in the film when Neo is releasedfrom his prison and made to grasp the truth of his life andthe world is similar to when the captive moves outside thecave to see the real world.

• The account above roughly captures that turning point in the

1999 film, and yet it is drawn from an image crafted almosttwenty-four hundred years ago by the Greek philosopher,Plato.

• The Matrix , by contrast, the two worlds are far lesscontinuous with one another. The substance of lives inside

the Matrix is supplied in mental states almost entirely cut off from this reality. (Ironically, the real world in The Matrix isvery like the world inside the cave.)



Questions that Plato’s cave and the Matrix

ask• What knowledge Neo attains that operates in

him like the knowledge of the Platonic form of the cave?

• What does Neo know only after great difficulty but also whose truth is fundamental?

• What object is grasped by Neo‟s intellect that heunderstands to be the condition of his knowinganything else?

• What knowledge enables him to be productive,to be a savior of himself and others?.



• It is nothing more than proper self-understanding.

• In both The Matrix and in the Cave, there is asingle item the knowledge of which makes theknower more integrated and more powerful, and

for Neo it is self-knowledge.

• IT IS SELF PERCEPTION!!!!!!!!!!!



Plato’s idea of Perception

• Is that perception is not a process of puttingknowledge into empty minds, but of making people realize that ;which they already know.

• This notion that truth is somehow embedded inour minds was also powerfully influential for Plato.



Final question What is stronger ?

Sight, smell or touch?

perception.complete

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