Perception is power

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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People place a great importance on knowledge. It is knowledge and the systematic thought and use of knowledge that defines a person’s logic and/or intelligence. Since man became man, we have used knowledge to make tools, have stimulating debates, make pies, etc. In this forum, we use the knowledge of past philosophers i.e. Nietzsche to back up our own thoughts on a matter, or we use our own knowledge to argue against his theories to give us a knowledge or understanding of the contrary.

Francis Bacon placed a great importance on knowledge evident in his quote “knowledge is power”. We all have an idea of what knowledge is, but where does it come from? Some would say it comes from seeing, reading a book, deep thought, or a thorough and/or complete understanding of any given thing.

And while I feel these are all correct statements, there is still something much more simpler that the aforementioned processes stem from. Imagine you are walking and there is a solid brick wall in front of you. There is no way you can see behind it, thus you have no knowledge of the leprechaun behind it.

My point is this: what if you possessed a way to see through or around the wall? Then you would have knowledge of the leprechaun. Seeing is just a form of your perception. Perception in this case meaning something like an internal eye that uses thought, the five senses, and memory to perceive how any given thing was/is/will be.

Perception in everyone is equal, it is the same. What is not equal are the biases to that perception a person possesses. Biases being any given thing that interferes with perception. For example, the bias in the previous perception would be the brick wall. A person’s mental psyche and understanding are defined by their biases. Biases such as mental handicaps (retardation, paranoia) feelings (love, hate) past experiences (As a kid, a dog attacked you, so you fear dogs as an adult) preference (you see two shirts but one is your favorite color. You perceive that shirt as better) etc. Those are just examples, it would be impossible to list all the biases even I myself possess.

What if all of our perceptions were neutral, that is to say without a single bias? Wouldn’t we all view the world and everything in it the exact same? And could that be the ultimate truth that we all try to find with our knowledge and understanding? The truth does not come from reading books, arguing on forums, and waxing philosophically…It comes by perceiveing the world with no bias. The clearer the perception, the greater the power to see the truth. Perception is power.

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first off, why chose a “leprechaun” in your example??

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Everybody likes a leprechaun.

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With this sort of debate, (which i assume it to be) you’re just inviting criticisms from begrundled people like myself who have been up all hours of the morning waiting for the train to go home…lol

But then again, you get the other problem, how do we communicate to one another? What I guess your getting at is a very mathematical, structuralist way of society operating. Because there are no biases etc in perception, some sort of natural consensual playing field indefinitely must be created. The only way I can think that that can happen is through some sort of mathematic-like obedience to a norm which we are controlled by, by the nature of our inability to see anything else from a different perspective.

Either that, or we lose our consciousness, because without it, we become animals, not bound by cognitive perception, but grounded back in the roots of evolutionism and the ups and downs that come with being limited to animal-like thought.

Preference would also be eliminated. We could not ‘prefer’ because to prefer would be to differ and what you propose is sameness, which is already what is happening with the whole gender equality debates. Sameness brings boredom, its our emotions that drive us to change, to break away from the sameness of perception.

For example - what if i shared the exact same opinion as you? The exact same wording etc, by the nature of this natural consensualism?

What if everyone did?

Then there would be no point because we would already know.

We would be one.

But then we’d become useless to each other, and therefore 1/10000000 being the same calls for there to be only one person

Mathematically

1 over 7 billion people

is still 1 person

So therefore

The thoughts of everyone would be one person, and one persons thoughts would be everyones.

But understand that this cannot be, because then truth would be self-evident. And if truth exists on its own, what goal is there then, to live?

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Willnz, has a point if we are all the same all the same thoughts , ideas , perceptions how will we improve or move forward we wolud be able to communicate seemlessly but what would we say, there would be nothing to say. Clarity of perception is needed but interpretation is the key.

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Perception isn’t a “thing.” It is an act consisting of pre-reflective consciousness; that one is aware that one is aware of something. But one doesn’t “know” perception…one knows the concept from the perception. The concept, unlike the percept, is nothing. It has no “there-ness.” It is a ghost language in the mind. “Words,” “percepts,” exist…thoughts do not.

A percept is not power, and a concept does not grant power. Power is an attribute of an object and its inertia. A mind and/or a thought cannot be powerful.

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Yeah, ur right, buuUt a thought/idea can bring about action, which in turn, can cause something to be powerful. Changes in the world and in society in general have been created by ideas.

On the flipside, supporting what you are saying, thoughts/ideas still are merely useless if not put into action.

How many smart ideas have you heard, which could end up being powerful, are never put into practice, and therefore are useless?

So we can’t begin to take thought/perception as self-supporting, perhaps they need some coercive means to actually become Powerful per se?

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I mean we could go on and on…

and on… :stuck_out_tongue: