The Task of Perception

Interbane · Posted: Sat Dec 04, 2004 1:27 pm Post subject: The Task of Perception

One of the central controversial topics in philosophy is that of sensory perception. As a foundation for this thread, I'll summarize that after much reduction, we must take for granted Sense Datum, such as "Here Blue Now". There is no inference. Sense Datum is the objective world entering our bubble of perception, yet not our interpretation of that incoming stimuli.

When we interpret that stimuli, we 'take' the incoming information, and 'match' it up to a previous sense perception, one that we can relate it to in order to gather meaning. For example, I may see a 'blue something', and realize it's my pen. If I had never before seen a pen or anything like it, the blue something would be completely alien. Yet I have seen a blue pen before, and can 'infer' what I see to be a blue pen.

The only time we all have an 'innocent eye' is when we are born and start making sense of reality. No incoming sense datum has meaning. Over time, we see patterns and make generalizations and start to 'infer' meanings on sense datum from previous experiences. This inference builds in complexity and depth as we experience and learn more.

Now to my point...

We have most of the things that we will experience in everyday reality already in our heads. If I drive down the road, almost everything I see I can relate to something else and gain meaning from it.

Imagine sitting in your bedroom and looking at a baseball on the floor. You see a white round object with red stripes, and infer to that sense datum all you recognize about the baseball. It is instantaneous and taken for granted. You have had many past experiences with baseballs and know how to 'percieve' them.

Yet after growing older and learning more about reality, we realize that there are forces in nature that we cannot see and meanings that we must struggle to infer on different things.

My question is, can we train ourselves to infer a better or different 'mental image' upon our sense datum than we currently do? If I look at that baseball and twist my mental conception of a baseball from 'a lump of white leather that is an object of entertainment for men and has (X,Y,Z) characteristics' into a 'construct of men that is currently struggling between the rigidness of the floor and gravity and is absorbing none of the colors visible to my eye'?

It seems an indistinct comparison, but there are cases that changing your mental inference of sense datum can be helpful. Such as when you look at powerlines, you have a powerful inference of 'energy', the same as when you look over a cliff and get a sense of vertigo. Or being cognizant of doorhandles to bathrooms, which are full of invisible germs.

If we attempt to infer these meanings to our sense datum every time we see them, do you think it's possible to override the inference we've created since birth?

jerkinabottle · Posted: Sun Dec 05, 2004 4:00 am Post subject: Re: The Task of Perception

Have you ever heard the statement, "set in his ways?" The older you get the more cemented you are in your own perception of life in general. Who is a better candidate to preach to about how science refutes religion in many areas, a religious old man in his 70's, or a religious 21 year old man? By the way, that's a rhetorical question.

Quote:
If we attempt to infer these meanings to our sense datum every time we see them, do you think it's possible to override the inference we've created since birth?

I don't think there is any way to override the inference we've created since birth unless we hit ourselves in a head with a hammer disabling us from understanding what our own hands are for. It's possible to change your perspective a little bit, but it takes willpower... and (the desire to change.) If you don't want to perceive something, and you're adamant about keeping a certain opinion or perception, there is nothing anyone can do to make you change your mind about a specific external stimuli.

MadArchitect · Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2004 12:27 am Post subject: Re: The Task of Perception

Interbane: There is no inference. Sense Datum is the objective world entering our bubble of perception, yet not our interpretation of that incoming stimuli.

There absolutely is an inference, because we have no particular mode of perception that allows us to perceive "the objective world entering our bubble of perception". All that we can know for certain is that sense datum appears in what Freud calls system Prcp., in other words, we can only be sure that there is information there. The first inference we must make in order to construct an idea of objective reality is that idea that this information comes to us from without, an inference that we make initially, with all probability, because we have so little control over the arrival and form of sense datum.

Interbane · Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2004 11:38 am Post subject: Re: The Task of Perception

The first inference we must make in order to construct an idea of objective reality is that idea that this information comes to us from without.

Yes, true. Let's move beyond that a bit though. Any other ideas?

MadArchitect · Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2004 2:49 pm Post subject: Re: The Task of Perception

Any other ideas about what, specifically?

Here's the trick with perception: That we know is more or less given. That what we know is connected to an external reality requires a few a priori leaps. It's possible to connect knowledge to a conception of external reality by a number of avenues, and each of these avenues has consequences for one's understanding of a reality that might be said to stand external to what we perceive as the natural world. So the interesting thing about substantiating perception is not whether or not it can be done (it can, to varying degrees of satisfaction), but what that substantiation does to the rest of our assumptions.

Interbane · Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2004 8:42 pm Post subject: Re: Unknown

MA: "There absolutely is an inference, because we have no particular mode of perception that allows us to perceive "the objective world entering our bubble of perception". All that we can know for certain is that sense datum appears in what Freud calls system Prcp., in other words, we can only be sure that there is information there."

Actually, aside from my initial response, I've read more into the book that was the catalyst for this idea. Knowing there is information there is not an inference of meaning, but is more likely a priori conclusion. The inference comes into play when we attach meanings to sense datum.


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