Relying on our senses

I found this text to be very clear and easy to understand, His stream of thoughts seemed logical and I liked the way he started from the beginning and methodically made judgments on what he believed to be true.

“Perception is another attribute of the soul; but perception too is impossible without the body besides, I have frequently during sleep; believed that I perceived objects which I afterward observed I did not in reality perceive”

As Descartes described as long as you had thoughts through consciousness you were alive and not part of someone else’s dream for example. I also believe that in many of my dreams I am missing parts of my senses, for example sometimes I wasn’t able to hear, or couldn’t touch anything.  A dream can sometimes be almost like real life but I find is always is less clear than reality. 

This being said I think we rely on others to help us find truths. Our perceptions are defined with the help of our environment and what we are told by others. I was reminded by the allegory of the cave by Plato, that relying on your senses alone in the material world are not suffice for you to see the true forms.

  I have always wondered about the ability of our perception and senses and how sometimes our perception is inaccurate. Optical illusions are clear evidence for the inaccuracies of our perception. The moon illusion, a example of this,  the moon is perceived smaller up in the sky then it does in the horizon, which has to do with our perception helping us to see objects more clearly, When on the horizon our senses have other objects which are closer to compare the moon too so our senses enlarge to make it look closer than it actually is. See this video

We use our senses and perception to help us understand the true nature of things, but the senses alone are inadequate to tell us the truth, since they often deceive us through optical illusion. If these optical illusions happen how do we know that what we see is true if our perception frequently confuses us. In that case how do we know what we see is not false.

Object permanence was seen in Descartes analogy of the candle wax , despite the taste and touch may have changed we are still able to understand it as the same object as candle wax it has. We are still able to know that is exactly the same piece of wax. This is somewhat like how a child learns that an object can still exist even through it can be perceived by the senses. Descartes argued that it was not our senses, which told us, that the wax was still wax but the mind itself.

Descartes believed in dualism, which argues that the mind and body are separate entities, and that the mind can exist without the body. But how can a mind exist without a body?

Although the body might deceive us through optical illusion the mind is rational and knows that the moon has not gotten smaller. However I would say our perception relies on both our mind and our body interchangeably.

These are some crazy ways that your mind can affect your body- like by thinking about your eyesight in a positive way,  your vision improves or having a belief that you are not tired and have slept enough even if you might not have, can make you feel more awake. Or perhaps the vice versa- pretending to be powerful through body movement will actually help you to have the confidence to be powerful. For example if you do a success pose (like putting your hands up in the air after you just ran a race) you are more likely to have successes later- This is called embodied cognition and I am sure many of you have already seen the ted talk on this but if not take a look.

These are just some ways that we can conceive the body and mind are interlinked and both can influence each other.

I am sorry for providing you with so many links, but here are some optical illusions to end on:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uWeSETkEjc