Do you think that we perceive reality by use of our fives senses, or by use of our 'mind's eye', thoughts, and intuition? A mixture of both? How much of each? What are your thoughts on this?

Do you think that we perceive reality by use of our fives senses, or by use of our 'mind's eye', thoughts, and intuition? A mixture of both? How much of each? What are your thoughts on this?

Do you think that we perceive reality by use of our fives senses, or by use of our 'mind's eye', thoughts, and intuition? A mixture of both? How much of each? What are your thoughts on this?

Hi there Kat3333,

Yes, I think that the central nervous system which drives the senses are primary mechanisms for exploration. But there are others, as you have indicated.

Famous theories to describe the universe, such as Einstein's Theory of Relativity as well as much of Quantum Physics were considered as thought (Gedanken) experiments. They were conceived of in their minds.

Also, you may have had experiences in your life where you solved a problem while asleep, dreaming, or it may have just popped into you. These are all ways in which we explore and create.

So, to answer your question, I think that they all play a part. Senses, thought, intuition (a feeling), etc. I play the stock market by intuition, because it is a game of chance, so that I can only rely on intuition.

Thanks for the question.

What do you think?

Rich

Is this a homework assignment?

For me, I don't see how you can have a reality without a sense faculty that is functional. My example is this, a person blind from birth does not have the same concept of color that a person with sight has. Therefore their reality of sight is either non existent or lacking but not equal to those with sight.

The other aspect in which we do not obtain is a sense data that is got by no sense organ. You might argue that thoughts are not produced by a sense organ but I object. I feel all thoughts originate due to the processes of the brain and are not magical free floating immaterial "things" that we just happen across. If that were the case you could never truly fashion a logical argument because you would have to either wait for the thought to arise or your argument might stumble because another thought preceded it. It doesn't work that way. We can construct ideas based off the gathering of experience of how we have observed reality. You can't get it the other way around. But people try to make the claim that you can. Imagination is not something got through non-experience. If you did, you would get ideas like birds always fly up but never fall or fly down. Doesn't happen, why? Because it does not support our experience. Have you ever seen a bird fly up that never came down? You might try to argue that you see birds fly away but you never actually see them land. Bogus but honest yet impractical.

Do you think that we perceive reality by use of our fives senses, or by use of our 'mind's eye', thoughts, and intuition? A mixture of both? How much of each? What are your thoughts on this?

so when the thoughts are generated by the brain, how do we perceive our thoughts? how do we sense our emotions? is intuition a sensory faculty?
(this relates to a discussion i am having with myself...)

how do we perceive experience? through the physical senses and is there anything else? grief is an emotional experience...there must be experiences that involve more than the physical.

I believe reality to be an illusion. I think that we perceive reality through "experience" with the "collective consciousness". People gain experience from lifetime to lifetime and it is a shared experience in the collective. This explains de ja vu. It explains psychic phenomena. All experience is, is time, and time is nothing but "change happening". With change comes experience. Reality is experience.

Jamie

We don't perceive experiences, we have experiences. Experiences are how we perceive, not what we perceive. Again, we do not sense emotions, we have emotions. I don't feel my anger, I am angry.

how can we have an experience and not perceive it? i believe experiences are what we perceive and the sense faculties are what we perceive with (how we perceive). but this only applies to the physical aspect of an experience. there must be ways of perceiving non-physical experience or elements of our environment-otherwise how would we know they were happening?

if you experience being cut off by someone changing lanes in traffic and part of the experience is your becoming angry, do you think the anger has to be perceived? isnt that how a person recognizes that what he is feeling is anger? or do you believe anger is something you possess? i believe it is a condition that happens to human beings which is an experience, or part of a larger experience, and it would have to be perceived. but i dont know how we do it. there are changes in metabolism, maybe adrenalin etc that could be noticed-but what about something like sadness? how do we perceive that, not how do we recognize or describe it by secondary effects, but through what faculty is it directly perceived?

how do we perceive our thoughts? some people think strictly verbally and some abstractly-do we have mental ears that listen to thoughts? is it memory that is recording thoughts and functioning as a means of sensing?

how do we perceive dreams? through what sensory faculties?

---------- Post added 08-29-2009 at 01:57 PM ----------



Have you any reason for believing that? Or, does that matter to you?

I believe reality to be an illusion. I think that we perceive reality through "experience" with the "collective consciousness". People gain experience from lifetime to lifetime and it is a shared experience in the collective. This explains de ja vu. It explains psychic phenomena. All experience is, is time, and time is nothing but "change happening". With change comes experience. Reality is experience.

I do have reason for believing that. The monitor in front of you wouldnt be there if your mind did not allow it to be there. It is there for everyone that looks at it because we are all connected on a collective level. It is a collective effort for the monitor to be there. It is adknowledged that it is sitting there in front of us.

Experience is time..and time is experience because time is nothing more than "change happening". Before change, nothing happened..time could not be calculated because change wasnt happening. It could be argued that time existed, but nothing was there to measure it with.. so in other words, time could be change that is happening that is observed.

The only thing that creates experience is an agent...us. In order for experience to happen, change has to happen and we are the ones making that change happen. Organisms are making that change happen. Therefore, experience is gained through change which is how I define reality.

Jamie

It is not that the monitor would not be there without my mind. It is that I would not know the monitor was there if I did not have a mind. Those are very different. We ought not to confuse something existing with our knowing it exists. After all, we know that many things existed before there were even people with minds. The Sun, Moon, etc. and the Earth itself, antedated the existence of people. No one experienced the world before they existed, but the world existed before there were people. And certainly before you existed. So you must be wrong.

I have a theory that I posted in metaphysics that pertains more in depth as to why I belive this. Feel free to read it. It is quite long, but if you even skim it and get the general idea, you will understand where and why I come from this point of view.

Jamie

But you must be wrong for the reason I gave. Don't you know that the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth itself, existed way before people with minds existed? If you do not, look it up. So how could reality be an illusion? Whose illusion would it have been when there were no people, but there was reality?

But you must be wrong for the reason I gave. Don't you know that the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth itself, existed way before people with minds existed? If you do not, look it up. So how could reality be an illusion? Whose illusion would it have been when there were no people, but there was reality?

What I think he means is that HIS reality is an illusion, created by the his own minds perception of this universe. I could be wrong though

What is "his reality"? What he believes is reality? Does he really think, for instance, that his belief that there is a monitor in front of him is false? Then what is he doing looking at it?

she* and yes I believe that the monitor in front of me very well could be false except for perception. The only reason that it is there is because energy allows it to be there.

Jamie