It is because of these confines that we can occasionally be deceived by our senses, hence the phrase sense deception. There are many sayings that illustrate how much faith we have that our own perceptions may be taken as knowledge, such as, “seeing is believing”, “I saw it with my own eyes”, in these cases it is to do with vision but it applies just as well with the other senses, “tastes sweet to me”.
A basic everyday example would be if one had to look at the sun, one would notice that on separate occasions the sun appears to be moving but is this really the case? This is what it appears to our eyes and brain, which logically deciphers that the sun is moving around the earth. This is a complete opposite though; the earth is in reality orbiting the sun. We have been deceived because of the position in which we look at the sun. However we can correct these types of deceptions by changing ones position or angle to better accommodate our senses if possible, ideally in this situation technology would probably be best to aid our senses, we would then in fact see what we now believe to be truth, earth orbiting the sun. This shows that perception can be subjective.
Magicians are working professionals who actually entertain us by using our faith in our own perceptions to deceive us. Being a past member of the South African Magical society I have a little knowledge on the subject. I find that there is many different approaches to deceive spectators; association and misdirection combine as one example. If I was to takes a ten-rupee coin on the palm of my hand gently lower it down, then sharply up. “Toss!” automatically appears in a lot of people heads whilst steering eyes to the ceiling. The spectator with an agile, well-trained mind will actually see the silver gleam as it flies upwards. A three-year-old child who has probably a tenth of the fathers practice at association due to experience, is not so “smart”: he sees no ten rupee coin at all after my hand starts lowering gently down (in a tossing motion).
Instead he may even see me using my fingers to press the coin tightly into my palm, where it sticks while the adults may be gaping at the ceiling in astonishment.
It is actually because of the parent’s prior experience, which the little child hasn’t attained yet, that they use association subconsciously. We obviously realize that we may be deceived by our senses but more crucially it is the fact that sometimes we only see what we want to see because there is no coin going into the air, no two people see or hear a given event exactly the same. It must be said though of all the wonderful expert conjurers in the world, not even the best can stand up to a slow-motion camera, again this is technology aiding our senses.
It is clear that sense perception can be deceptive but there is normally a solution to every problem, it is clear that there are ways of checking for truth, perception is affected by the context in which it is taken, and it can be relative and subjective. By knowing this we can correct our perceptions and prevent deception as well as exhaust all possibilities before making a claim to knowledge based purely on what we perceive.
Reference:
In the research undertaken by myself I found interesting information in the following books, which influenced the outcome of my efforts.
- Steven Pinker’s, How the mind works. Published in 1997.
- Anthony Harrison-Barbet’s, Mastering Philosophy. Published in 1990.
- David Roth’s, Expert Coin Magic. Published in 1985.
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Henry Hay’s, The Amateur Magicians Handbook. Published in 1982. (Fourth edition)
