What do we really see?

by nardeen (student)

International Baccalaureate Theory of Knowledge

Grace |

Nardeen Grace

Ms. Fleming

TOK

1/25/12

What do we really see?

“We see and understand things not as they are but as we are “this claim can be valid to two very important ways of knowing reasoning and perception. I consider these as our main gates to knowing and revealing new information. We use these two ways of knowing which are in a way very related to each other because as we perceive things with our senses we reason it afterwards in our heads, but we are very different from each other and so what we perceive as in feel ,see , touch and hear varies from one person to another according to his genetic features and then again if we see the exact same thing we tend to reason it or see it differently in our own minds according to our personality and our past experience, making what we see and reason according to our own self and not according to what it really is or what it is to other people.

Perception is defined in the Cambridge dictionary as an awareness of things through the physical senses specially sight, so it might seem as something absolute but we all have limitations in our perception and might even literally see things different from each other. As for reasoning it is defined as trying to understand and to make judgments on practical facts , but then again do we all have the same understanding and judgment on things we perceive?. These two ways of knowing are applied in our everyday life and two important areas of knowledge science and art. A big part of discovering Science is by experimenting on different things in which observation and conclusions which are depended on our perception and reasoning determines the scientific discovery within that experiment. Sciences tend to really show our limitations within our sense perception for example when seeing the sunlight we see a white light when it is actually the 7 colors of the spectrum this shows that we see according to our own perception which tends to be limited, also when viewing cells we can’t see the details with our own naked eyes, so to us it may appear as just an empty box or circle when there could be so much details when viewed under a microscope. Coming to the fact that we might even see things differently that each other could be illustrated by comparing a normal sight person to someone who is color blind, to him the world is a totally different perspective than the normal sighted person and is just shades of grey while to a normal person the world is such a beautiful place filled with color and emotions. In this case what we literally see is different from each other therefore we create with what we are or what we sense perceives totally different worlds from each other or in other words a different paradigm. Going back to scientific experiments he would have a totally different observation and even different conclusions especially in the field of chemistry in which a certain color might code for a certain element or chemical.

The concluding part of the experiment is dependent on the reasoning of the person by evaluating the observation and what it really means scientifically. In science we tend to use inductive reasoning meaning that we base a specific idea on the general. For example when an experiment is made on a plant and the result shows that it undergoes photosynthesis then we reason that all plants undergo photosynthesis. People tend to differ in their reasoning, one of the reasons is that we may see different things due to our perception limitations and the other is that although we might ...

This is a preview of the whole essay

The concluding part of the experiment is dependent on the reasoning of the person by evaluating the observation and what it really means scientifically. In science we tend to use inductive reasoning meaning that we base a specific idea on the general. For example when an experiment is made on a plant and the result shows that it undergoes photosynthesis then we reason that all plants undergo photosynthesis. People tend to differ in their reasoning, one of the reasons is that we may see different things due to our perception limitations and the other is that although we might see the exact same things, our understanding and reasoning of what we see is based on our own experiences and knowledge. For example going to the science of astronomy if two people are watching the stars and one is shiner than the other, one might reason that the star is simply shinier than the other and the other might reason that it is because it is closer than the other. Another example is two people watching the sun set one might reason that the earth goes around the sun and the other might reason the sun goes around the earth even though they both saw the exact same thing the reasoning or the conclusion behind it is different. This then raises the question is science objective or subjective? Many people argue that science can never truly be objective and that scientific knowledge is simply knowledge of nature of objects as we perceive them not as they actually are and so perfect objectivity can never be reached in science since all scientific methods of inquiry are based human concepts, tools and thought patterns which as discussed earlier in terms of perception and reasoning are limited and differ from one person to another. While others say that it is the method of gaining scientific knowledge that should be argued as subjective or objective and that scientific knowledge is considered an objective thing as it is facts in life even though we might perceive it and reason it differently doesn’t change what it actually or really is. Also people who believe that science is objective support it by saying that scientific experiments are usually done by groups of people and corrected or proven over the years and the fact that when an experiment is done and repeated the results tend to be relatively the same proves that science is something factual and not subjective.

The second area of knowledge is art which by many people is seen as subjective, because it is based on opinions and the emotional attachment of a person to a work of art thus affecting his reasoning or perception of what this piece of art means. For example the Mona Lisa is a very famous Da Vinci art piece and it is known for its beautiful smile and known that when a person looks at the picture the emotion that he is feeling is reflected on the picture so if someone is sad he sees the Mona Lisa as a sad woman and if he is happy he sees the Mona Lisa as a happy woman. But then again the person who drew or invented the piece of art had a certain purpose behind it that he wanted to deliver to his audience so does that make art in a way objective? Since no matter what people think of the art piece its original intention and message will stay the same regardless of how people perceive or reason it. This makes art like science although it is a certain fact everyone sees it differently not because it is different but because we are different from each other in terms of our perception and reasoning.

To conclude I support the quote fully for it is true that no matter how objective something can be it changes to be subjective not because it is so but because people are different that in each others in many different ways and so we see things as we are and as our past experience and knowledge tend to be rather than what it could really be. This means that there is a whole world of objectivity that we can’t reach due to our limitation but as human collaborate together we search a certain agreement and conclusion on some objective facts in the field of Science and Art.