I would like to discuss the topic of emotion in the context of how it can be used to filter out certain events or memories. Emotion is able to act as a strong filter in one's perception of the world as it is. The Oxford Dictionary definition of 'Emotion' is:
A mental state that arises spontaneously rather than through conscious effort and is often accompanied by physiological changes; a feeling: the emotions of joy, sorrow, reverence, hate, and love.
When discussing emotion as a filter, certain areas of knowledge, such as humanities and languages, can be considered as some of the areas of which emotion helps to filter. Jewish American author Isaac Bashevish Singer wrote: "The very essence of literature is the war between emotion and intellect...” This means that without emotion, we are unable to perceive certain elements which come into literature. However, the emotional filters which people have can also cause people to filter out the information which they do not want to hear, read, or remember. Emotion is very powerful in helping people to forget certain events or information, and therefore not being able to remember the true event or real situation, as it has not been chosen to be remembered by the knower themselves. For example, a traumatic event, such as a car crash, may not be remembered by the knower, as the emotional connection with such event might be so traumatic, that it has been filtered out. This is a situation which a friend of mine has firsthand experience with. She cannot remember the events during or after the car crash, not because she doesn’t want to, but simply because her emotional filter has blocked this specific event out. Therefore, in order to completely understand emotional filters, one must try to entirely block out these filters to get a real picture of reality.
When talking about Plato’s Cave allegory, Plato is clearly positing that sensory perceptions are illusion and, by default, if humans only rely on their senses, then life is limited to living like prisoners in a cave, only "seeing" and "interpreting" the sensations governed by images on a cave wall. This analogy states that if we, as human beings, all relied purely on our senses, then we would all see things in the same light. However, through our perception filters, each human being is able to take a unique view on a situation. A common example of this could be when analysing poetry. The writer may have intended the poem to be about immortal life, using the imagery of flowers, for example. However, the reader may think this is about a garden, whereas another reader may think this is about love. Through these filters, one is able to grasp a unique view on life. However, because these filters are unique to each person, it is possible that an individual cannot grasp the poets intended meaning. However, people’s perceptions are often governed by the social backgrounds in which they come from and conventions within that society. For example, a group of football fans may have a similar perception when it comes to supporting their football team, whilst an educated person may well perceive the intended meaning of a poet or writer by understanding the symbolism involved.
For some people, however, filtering out the different is a challenge. For people with synaesthesia, being able to filter out the five senses is a difficult and incomprehensible task. Synaesthesia is a neurological condition “Synaesthesia is a condition in which stimulation in one sensory modality (for example, taste) triggers an experience in another sensory modality”. (Source: University of East London school of Psychology). Synesthetes often have trouble recognising one sense on its own. Instead, the sense is related to another sense. For example, sound may be related to colour, and touch may be related to taste. Synaesthesia is common in musicians, such as Duke Ellington, Leonard Berstein and Franz Liszt. These particular musicians see each sound, or each different note as a different colour. For example, Duke Ellington said: “If Harry Carney is playing, D is dark blue burlap. If Johnny Hodges is playing, G becomes light blue satin." (Source: Wikipedia, taken from Don George, p. 226.). Synaesthesia occurs when filters in the brain are not able to filter out information that is not relevant o that particular sense. The brain becomes unable to filter out the colour from the sound, therefore the synesthete associates a particular colour with a particular sound. This is particularly interesting as synesthetes cannot filter out information, and therefore cannot see something as it really is, without associating it to something else.
I believe that we can never find out how things ‘really are’. I believe this as every person has their own unique filters which make each different person see the world in a different light. As Plato said, if humans were to rely solely on their senses, we would only see the images put before us, being unable to associate these images with other objects, each in our own unique way. Understanding filters is essential is understanding perception, as one must understand their own thought process and ideas to really understand their view on a particular topic, however, that does not enable one to find out how things ‘really are’, it only enables people to find out how their own unique mind really is.
by
kkwiseman (student)
