Thursday, November 8, 2007
Knowledge through senses?
I just have a further example to add to today's topic of whether or not one can gain knowledge through one's senses. There is an illusion I found online a few weeks back that claims to be visually arbitrary--that is, one person sees it one way, another sees it another way, but not both. We've all seen this in optical illusions, but this illusion was different: it differed from person to person in its direction of rotation! I looked at it quite skeptically at first. It is the figure of a woman rotating clockwise. It was undoubtedly clockwise; there was no question in my mind about its rotation. My friend came in after I had watched it a few moments and said "That's a silly illusion; there's no question about the way it's spinning. Counter-clockwise." I was absolutely shocked. We tried for a while fruitlessly to convince eachother that the figure was spinning the opposite direction. We each had this firm "knowledge"--but neither of us was either right or wrong. After watching it a while, I was surprised when I actually witnessed the figure change rotational direction. One can actually force their visual system to reconstruct the image. This fits in very nicely with today's discussion; what I witnessed when viewing the figure wasn't true knowledge at all, though I was convinced that it was. My senses gave me knowledge that was neither true nor false; the figure may rotate either way. Then again, this rotation is constructed from simply alternating images and is not rotating at all, so perhaps the interpretation was indeed false. Either way, my senses did not lead me to absolute knowledge, which leads me to wonder: If my senses can mislead me in such a trivial fashion, do they mislead me in much larger ways every day? I now see that as an entirely plausible idea. And if anyone wants to try the illusion, here's a link, along with a great article about it: http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php?p=27 (I suppose as a warning, it is indeed the figure of a woman. Not graphic but a bit detailed.)
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4 comments:
"One can actually force their visual system to reconstruct the image. "
Believing is seeing.
Wow! What a wonderful site! Thanks for including the link. I saw the figure spinning clockwise, clearly, at first. Then as I read the article, I glanced back and nearly jumped out of my chair as the figure clearly spun counterclockwise. As I continued to stare at it, I could not make it spin clockwise again. And now, after taking a break, I look again and she is spinning clockwise and I cannot seem to make her go counter.
The important thing was your comment, "If my senses can mislead me in such a trivial fashion, do they mislead me in much larger ways every day? I now see that as an entirely plausible idea."
As we have said, IB wants us to focus on the good grounds we have for knowing this or that. So, if our senses are so easily deceived, and if they are the basic channels through which we acquire the data that we assemble into knowledge, how can we increase our level of certainty when it comes to knowing? Could it be that it is in the our internal assembly of data into knowledge that we should place our confidence? In other words, should we not be so bothered by flawed channels of input since the assembly process in the brain takes account of this and yields useful, certain, even true knowledge?
And just to make your head spin a bit, can their be knowledge that is not true?
I just discovered something, at least for myself. If I have the page of the spinning woman displayed so that I can only see her from the knees down, I can very easily switch back and forth from perceiving a clockwise to a counterclockwise rotation. Once I have locked in on this perception, I scroll the page so I can see the full person. What I suspect is happening is that the other details of the full picture, such as head turning, position of arms, combine to make me see a picture that I cannot shake. When I have reduced the details to the minimum, I have more control over shifting my perception.
Yes, Mr. Perkins instructions are very helpful. Amazing, the power (or I guess "skeptebility") of the brain is tested very well in this example. Probably on of the coolest mind games I have ever seen. Very cool! I don't know the process that it occurred in but I could not change the direction by just commanding myself to do it. I would have to read the paragraph below and then my peripheral vision would pick up the "switch". But yes, very cool! Thanks.
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