When Should We Trust Our Senses to Give Us Truth?
Topic #2: When should we trust our senses to give us truth?
Word count: 779 words Our senses help us interact with the world. Smell, hearing, sight, taste, touch, and external stimulus play a major role in shaping our perceptions of the surroundings and the world. To trust our senses means that we have justified belief of what we perceive is “true”. To what extent can our senses give us truth? In order to obtain a better understanding of under what conditions we can rely on our senses, we need to compare circumstances where they have most been true with circumstances where they most have not.
We appear to rely on our senses in order to perceive the truth in terms of the world and the surroundings. Senses are the representation of reality, we can perceive that there is an apple on the table by touching or seeing it through motor and sensory neurons and electromagnetic rays. Also, senses play a significant role in surviving. A keen sense of smell allows animals to run away from predators and allocate food, similarly, a good eye-sight allows us to see what is going on around us and helps us get familiar with the surroundings in order to adapt. In 2004, many animals such as elephants and flamingos escaped the tsunami in Sri Lanka and India, the animals “predicted” the coming disaster as they may have more acute sense of hearing or touch which allows them to feel the strong vibration of the Earth.
On the other hand, our senses can easily be deceived. Advertisements on TV and internet tell us how great a product is and encourage us to buy it, however, the truth may be that the actual product is not as effective as it seems to be. I bought a shampoo because on the advertisement it said that it can moisturize my hair and make my hair look shiny, and the hair of the model in the advertisement looked pretty which made me want to look like her. However, when I actually used it, it did not have all the effects that were described and my hair still looked the
Word count: 779 words Our senses help us interact with the world. Smell, hearing, sight, taste, touch, and external stimulus play a major role in shaping our perceptions of the surroundings and the world. To trust our senses means that we have justified belief of what we perceive is “true”. To what extent can our senses give us truth? In order to obtain a better understanding of under what conditions we can rely on our senses, we need to compare circumstances where they have most been true with circumstances where they most have not.
We appear to rely on our senses in order to perceive the truth in terms of the world and the surroundings. Senses are the representation of reality, we can perceive that there is an apple on the table by touching or seeing it through motor and sensory neurons and electromagnetic rays. Also, senses play a significant role in surviving. A keen sense of smell allows animals to run away from predators and allocate food, similarly, a good eye-sight allows us to see what is going on around us and helps us get familiar with the surroundings in order to adapt. In 2004, many animals such as elephants and flamingos escaped the tsunami in Sri Lanka and India, the animals “predicted” the coming disaster as they may have more acute sense of hearing or touch which allows them to feel the strong vibration of the Earth.
On the other hand, our senses can easily be deceived. Advertisements on TV and internet tell us how great a product is and encourage us to buy it, however, the truth may be that the actual product is not as effective as it seems to be. I bought a shampoo because on the advertisement it said that it can moisturize my hair and make my hair look shiny, and the hair of the model in the advertisement looked pretty which made me want to look like her. However, when I actually used it, it did not have all the effects that were described and my hair still looked the