Epistemology and the Evolution of the Senses

[AnitaS]

@finishedman

If you do not know what you are looking at, can you experience it?

If you do not know what you are listening to can you experience it?

If you do not know what you are smelling can you experience it?

You are trapped in the knowledge you have of reality. After all, if what you call real is what your senses are detecting, then they are no more or less than electrical signals interpreted by your brain. Interpretation is the act of translating the sensory perceptions by means of your experiencing structure which is totally dependent on the knowledge you have of things and without which there would be no experiencing at all. So, if the knowledge is not there about reality, then the question of reality is not there anymore for you. Questions and assertions about reality arise from this knowledge, which is still interested in finding out the reality of things, and to experience directly what that reality is all about. When this knowledge is not there, the question is also not there. Then there is no need for finding any answer. Assumptions about reality are born out of this knowledge you have of and about the reality.

First of all, there is an assumption on your part that there is a reality, and then, that there is something that you can do to experience that reality. Without the knowledge about reality, you have no experience of reality, that is for sure. Further, if the knowledge you have been given about ‘real’ things does not belong to you (and I think this is where gib is going), then you have been put in a position where you take it for granted and trust that it is reality.

I’m sorry, I don’t really understand how this is in response to my comment to gib. As far as your first questions, we experience many things before we know what they are, much of our childhoods are spent doing just that. Often the experience precedes the knowing, doesn’t it?

You are trapped in the knowledge you have of reality. After all, if what you call real is what your senses are detecting, then they are no more or less than electrical signals interpreted by your brain.

I think there is far more that is “real” than what my senses can detect, that was what I was trying to say in my earlier post. If I am completely missing your point, my apologies, but there is no assumption on my part that there is something I can do to experience all of reality. In fact, I assume just the opposite.

[Dan1 (Dan~)]

@AnitaS

@gib

We are given a reality. And that’s it. We either trust it or we don’t.

I’m not sure I agree. I think we can acknowledge and accept the fact that the reality we experience is incomplete. For example, we understand that our “visible spectrum” is different from other animals’ and insects’ visible spectrum, and that other animals can hears sounds we can’t. Who knows how many other dimensions exist that we’re not able to perceive?

All of which suggests that our “reality” isn’t nearly the entirety of what’s out there. I wouldn’t say that is necessarily cause to distrust what we do experience, but I think we have to be aware that even if what we’re experiencing is “real,” our interpretation of that reality would likely be different if we had a larger capacity for perception.

That’s so true.
I think those dimensions are all linked, and that is the main thing which makes them experience-able.
Completely disconnected forces and realms can’t be experienced.

[finishedman]

Yes … but is not our ‘experience’ of something – even though it is a feeling, sensation or involvement – happening in the neurons of the brain; in a small area of grey matter? Even though there is a transfer of info from something stimulating the nerve receptors to the brain, how is it that there is a ‘person’ there that can ‘read’ the info and tell what it is apart from the knowledge stored in the memory cells? Can there be any experiencing without that knowledge? And does not that knowledge create the separation of a self from other things? Apart from knowledge there is no ‘person’, no self there.