Mike Brewer

I didn't really know where else to put this thread, so Open Access is good enough.

The phrase "perception is reality" has become cliche in our society - to a point where the intent of the phrase is lost, and it is now used to shift blame from someone who may have made a dumbass assumption to someone who simply wasn't aware of the bias of his audience. For example:

Two security guards are seen in the middle of a parking lot talking instead of walking around on patrol. A supervisor sees this and counsels the guards' manager, who promptly drags both guards into the office for a butt reaming. It turns out, the first guard was a shift lead, and he was delivering a performance counseling to the other officer for sleeping on the job. In other words, he was doing his duty and correcting an employee under him on the spot. The manager, still hurt at having been called on the carpet by the supervisor dismisses the explanation and asserts, "Perception is reality. If the boss thinks you were doing wrong, then you were."

Now it's clear that this story contains a spineless manager who refused to stand up for his people, even when they were doing the right thing. But it's a true story that I was involved with years ago. I think of it every time I hear Perception is reality." My response to my manager at the time was:

"Take a look at that tree over there."

"Okay." he responded, playing along and humoring me.

"See it? Now take off your glasses." He did. "Does it look different?"

"Well sure." My boss admitted.

"Is it different?" I challenged.

"No, of course not." He replied, still not sensing the trap.

"So even though you're perceiveing it differently, that tree hasn't changed?"

His face went slack as the "ah-ha" hit him.

Perception simply isn't reality. Someone might have a perception that a badger looks like a cute, cuddly little teddy bear wandering around in the woods. That perception is likely to cause trouble precisely because it so far from reality - especially if that person decides to pick up said badger and cuddle. Someone might also have a perception that Clark Kent is a geeky little sissy-boy, and that picking on him might be a good idea. Again - not reality.

My point is that it is far more common for a misperception to be just that - a mistake in perception. It is likely that whomever came up with that saying meant that one will act based on what he perceives, and therefore treats his perceptions as reality. But that doesn't make it so. Sometimes, perception is simply ignorance of the facts. Often, it is a way for executives to keep from standing up to their bosses and shift the blame for mistakes to the employees below them who may well have done nothing wrong.

Anyone else got any "Perception vs. Reality" stories?

Bjjexpertise@be

Brewer, you make it more philosophical than it actually is. I am envious of you .

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eXcessiveForce

Mike I swear I just typed something about this in the Martial artists and the law thread in the urban combat forum.

I had a student that was a biker, he wore leathers, even when he was driving a truck, he had the big old, semi zz top beard, and long hair, he had tattoos an he carried himself like a badass.

As he worked his way up to black belt and began teaching. One thing he did was shave and get a crew cut, he got better clothes and started to look more professional. (His wife accused me of turning into a yuppie and said he didn't look like a man anymore) But one day he came in and told me how a little old lady had asked him for help pumping gas. He said no one had ever asked him for help before and he knew it was because of the change in appearance.

Unfortunately, he took this as people are superficial and judgemental. Not that he was giving off a vibe that people were responding to in both circumstances.

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eXcessiveFORCE.

If you must use force, make it excessive.

Mike Brewer

But in a way, XF, that proves the point. He wasn't a different person (assuming his age and martial arts didn't make him a "good person" and that he wasn't before martial arts), but a mistake in perception unfairly pigeonholed him for years. How far is it between assuming that your acquaintace was a rough, tough, greasebag biker-type and assuming someone is a criminal because they're black or they live in a "bad neioghborhood?" How far is it between failing to recognize that there's more to your biker buddy than may meet the eye, and failing to realize that the quiet next door neighbor who "never causes problems and always pays his bills on time" is actually keeping human body parts in the fridge and masturbating to beheading videos?

All I'm saying is that far, far more often than not, perception proves far from reality. In most cases, superficial perception is completely untrustworthy and inaccurate. Why then do we place so much dependence on it? Why do we accept it out of habit without wanting to know more? How can people, after being proved wrong so many times over the entire course of a lifetime not begin to question their first impressions?

Not trying to make a federal case of it or anything - it's just something that intrigues me.

eXcessiveForce

Actually, he was sent to prison for using what I taught him on his wife. I changed his outside and is demeanor, but I didn't fix his core.

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eXcessiveFORCE.

If you must use force, make it excessive.

eXcessiveForce

Well first reality is subjective. Because your perception is your reality. If you think the world is out to get you, you will see everything from that perspective and it will attract that to you thus creating your reality.

For instance I wanted that tv special Black vs. White and the black guy thought everyone was being racist towards him, but watching it from the outside as the observe of the show, you could see that the slights he felt he was recieving were not intentional racist behavior, or even unintentional for that matter. The back ground is they took a black and white family and used hollywood makeup to change them to look a different race. At one point both men looked black. As they walked down the street some women walking towards them stepped out of the way. The true black man said "see how they got out of the way like I was going to mug them (or something to that effect) to which the white guy made up to look black said "of course they stepped out of the way, we are taking up the whole sidewalk." To people experiences the same event but interpretted it completely differently due to their perception.

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eXcessiveFORCE.

If you must use force, make it excessive.

Mike Brewer

First, I wish I had seen the show. It sounds good. Second, does either interpretation affect what really is? Is there "reality" independent of the observer?

eXcessiveForce

well generally reality is considered the shared experience of society. But this is really agreement on what reality is. We both look at the sky and have been taught it is blue. So you tell me the sky is blue and I agree it is blue. However your visual system is screwed up and you actually see what I think is orange. Still you have been taught that color is blue so you say blue.

I'll type some more later, gotta go train.

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eXcessiveFORCE.

If you must use force, make it excessive.

eXcessiveForce

okay, what was I saying


All experience is subjective. it must pass through the senses, and since your senses are unique to you, your reality is subjective. Your perception colors your view of what is happening around you. An unbiased observe can often see thing that the person involved in the event cannot because they are viewing the situation from a personal viewpoint. The observe while still seeing it from their own viewpoint can see the event and if they are normal will be able to approximate the shared reality of the individuals in the event.

since reality is simply those things that we agree are similar enough for us to agree on based on our preception. it supports the idea that our perception is individual interpretation of reality, and yet not reality in essence.

How's that for a convoluted text.

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eXcessiveFORCE.

If you must use force, make it excessive.

eXcessiveForce

As for does reality exist apart from the observer. this is debated by many philosphers, It is the difference between experiential and intuitive logic.

Some philosphers say that I can only know something by experiencing that thing. Others say that I can infer from my some knowledge what is truth.

So we get science out of the first school of thought,

We get ethics and religion out of the second school of thought.

So I cannot say for certain that there is reality apart from the observer, but intuitively I can say that I believe that reality does exist apart from the observer.

For instance, the belief that when I close my eyes the world stops and restarts when I open them again. OR the whole tree in the forest and no one to hear it question.

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eXcessiveFORCE.

If you must use force, make it excessive.

eXcessiveForce

A fun question is,

Do you really exist? Or are you simply a construct of my imagination. And even if you are a construct that only exists through my reality, does my belief that you are real make you real?

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eXcessiveFORCE.

If you must use force, make it excessive.

Mike Brewer

Okay, so philosophically, we have the Quantum Physics experiment (I thought it would be fun to use science as an example of the school of thought that we get religion from) of Dr. Schrodinger's cat. The cat is in a box without viewports, and a vial of poison in broken within. Experimentally (by experience alone) we do not know if the cat is dead, although previous experience tells us it should be. Therefore, if reality is dependent on the observer, the cat is both alive and dead (a 50-50 chance of each), which is not possible. Only when we open the box and observe it is the cat actually dead (or alive). So if reality is dependent on the observer, then everything we know to be true isn't, and something can indeed exist in two states at the same time.

Pragmatically, I guess all I'm looking for is whether or not people should dig deeper instead of trusting snap judgements so often. But hte philosophy part is fun too...

eXcessiveForce

well I saw a study last year that stated that peoples snap judgements are actually quite reliable. I'll see if I can dig up the info, and the specifics. But if memory serves people were able to determine if someone was lying 70% or so of the time.

I'll see what i can do but it might take awhile.

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eXcessiveFORCE.

If you must use force, make it excessive.

Mike Brewer

That's only snap judgements about one thing, though, yeah? How many areas in your life require decisions?

Garland

Aha, philosophy?
Some of the shit I had to write for my philosophy course...all on perception, reality, choice, and morality.


PERCEPTION AND REALITY


Hume’s Inductive Reasoning

Matters of Uncertain Fact

In David Hume’s “An Inquiry of Human Understanding”, the philosopher states a clear and direct argument regarding the nature of the human understanding of the corporeal world. In this argument, he makes a case for almost all human knowledge to be based solely on the senses, namely the inductive reasoning of “Matters of Fact”.
In order for a human being to gain an idea of an object or a thing. An object creates an impression upon our senses, upon which we base our ideas and perceptions of the object. From this initial perception, we examine the commonalities, contrasts, and relationships between other objects.
What links objects together, or what creates our sense of the outside world occurs through causation. When we become aware, through our senses, of an object interacting or changing, we find cause and effect. Through the examination of this cause and effect, we are able to come to “Matters of Fact” reasoning.
“Matters of Fact” are found by experience only, and not by the linear deductive logic that can be applied in “Relations of Ideas”, which are applied solely to mathematical sciences, such as Geometry or Algebra. “Relations of Ideas” do not require, according to Hume, any experience to discover, nor do they rely on the state of the cosmos.
Besides the “Relations of Ideas” which relate to math, all of our other ideas of the world are based on impression, ideas, and the inductive reasoning used to form “Matters of Fact”. We believe that the sun will set tomorrow because that is what our observations, our reasoning, and comprehension of the causation tell us. Nevertheless, because these “Matters of Fact” rely upon the future to conform to the known past and present, we can never be completely certain of them. Therefore, it is not completely illogical to say that, perhaps the sun may not rise tomorrow morning. Our understanding of the outside world, therefore, is limited to “the present testimony of our senses, and the records of our memory.
In summary, our knowledge of everything, outside of pure deductive logic that pertains to the “Relations of Ideas” found in mathematics, our entire sense of the world is based upon inductive logic that remains entirely uncertain, because it presupposes that the future will be the same as the past and the present.
I guess tomorrow might be a better day after all. You never know.


ONTOLOGICAL ARGUEMENTS

Garland Hummel
Philosophy Paper 5
Paley’s Argument

The World as a Watch


In William Paley’s “Argument for Design”, the author makes a poignant teleological argument for the existence of God. He argues that the very workings and interactions within the world show elements of design.
Paley opens up with a distinction between a watch and a rock. When one stumbles across a stone, it is easy to assume that the stone has been there forever, and, within itself, shows absolutely no signs of being a designed thing. Now if a watch were to be found, we would immediately assume that it had been created, as watches are framed and put together for a particular purpose. “But being once...observed and understood-the inference we think is innevitable-that the watch must have had a maker.”
Paley claims that the world is like the watch, a multitude of parts put together within a framework for a particular purpose, albeit one that eludes the mortal mind. Paley says that no rational human being would assume that the watch existed as a watch like the rock existed as a rock without being designed or created for the purpose for which it serves.
Paley claims that the nature of various things and the phenomena we describe as natural laws are points for his argument, and the cogs and wheels in God’s great machine we perceive as the cosmos.
Watches sometimes have flaws, imperfections, or irregularities. Another point in Paley’s argument is the world’s flaws as perceived by humanity must lie in the work itself, and not necessarily the hand of God. Paley doesn’t elaborate too much on that end, but states toward his conclusion that the benevolence of God, nor the defects or irregularities we see in the world are strikes against the existence of a Creator. “Irregularities and imperfections are of little or no weight in the consideration when the consideration relates simply to the existence of a Creator.
Paley’s argument is solid from an inductive reasoning standpoint. But because Paley bases his claims on only things that he can observe, and upon probability, causality, and analogy, his argument is greatly flawed. It seems to be a rather brash thing to do, a comparison between two things that are only alike in the way that Paley perceives them to be, which is not a universal perception shared by the whole of mankind.
It presupposes that there is indeed purpose in the world, which remains to be seen, and appears to be a highly subjective view.


Clifford versus James

Choice to Believe


In W.K. Clifford’s “The Ethics of Belief”, the author makes an attack on unfounded beliefs through the usage of analogy and rhetoric. Clifford uses the analogy of ship owner suppressing his doubts about a ship’s sea worthiness based solely on his beliefs that other ships have sailed in worse condition. Because of his erroneous belief in the face of harboring doubts, he unwittingly sends the occupants of the ill fated vessel to their deaths.
Clifford also believes that once one holds a belief in their heart, it is inevitable that they will start acquiring similar beliefs which augment their actions. His point is very clear, that nobody has the right to act upon a belief if they have any doubts that they may be incorrect. The argument also relates to beliefs which are taken in without enough substantiating fact or logic to hold them up.
In his conclusion, Clifford sums his argument up in a very concise and pungent sentence, “it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.”
In William James’s “The Will to Believe”, James makes the claim that there are two different leads into the holding of a belief, one can make decisions based upon living or dead options, which may in turn be forced or avoidable, and tertiary momentous or trivial in nature.
In other words, a decision to hold a belief can be taken by how applicable the choices are in the equation. It can either be an avoidable choice, or one that is thrust upon the person, and it can have either momentous repercussions or those that are trivial in nature.
James holds the opinion that the most admirable course, paraphrasing Liberty Equality and Fraternity, is to “Act for the best, hope for the best, and take what comes... If death ends all, we cannot meet death better.”
This also relates to the argument for the existence of God. There is certainly not enough sufficient evidence for the existence of God, however if one were to take James’s standpoint on belief, faith in God is not entirely a wrong course of action, because it is a choice that comes to us “live” through many of the institutions in our lives.
If one were to take Clifford’s point of view, however, if one holds a belief, even in God, upon insufficient evidence, they are likely to hold similar beliefs in and take them on in a gullible and casual manner to the detriment of the whole of humanity.
This debate brings into question the concept of “sufficient evidence”. Every person on the face of this planet has different criteria for meeting this standard, and because it is so subjective, it cannot be accurately calculated nor can universal guidelines be set for it.
In my personal, and very humble opinion, (yeah, I know, how often will you hear THAT come out of my mouth) both authors have it right. We must choose the best options and hold beliefs with the most evidence for them, and hope blindly that the evidence leads us in the right direction.

MORALITY and CHOICE

Garland Hummel
Philosophy
Holbach v. Ayers
It Is What It Is


In his essay entitled “The Illusion of Free Will”, Paul Holbach makes a strong case for the theory of hard determinism. His argument states that humanity is subject to the same universal laws of causality that apply to everything else in existence. In essence, everything somebody does is predetermined by their nature and the environment to which they are subjected to.
Because our desires, our constitution, and our character are already predetermined by the things that shape us both externally and internally, we are already apt to take a course of action, regardless of the other courses of action that may be available. The very fact that we are predetermined to pursue a given course of action means that choices, and the ability to exercise what has been deemed “free-well”, is completely illusory.
“Man in performing some action in which he is resolved on doing, does not by any means prove his fee agency...becomes a necessary motive, which decides his will either for one or the other of these actions...in whatever manner he acts, he will act necessarily, according to motives by which he shall be determined.”
The hard determinist statement is that one’s actions are always predestined and causally determined, and because of this, nobody can be held morally accountable for their actions. The choices we make are products not of our will, but of our character and of our ideas, desires, and the values placed into us by the institutions in our lives, all of which lay beyond the scope of our control.
Holbach also says that we are born without our consent, our ideas come to us without our willing them to do so, and that our organization isn’t dependent upon our will. Instead man is compelled to travel;
“the route which nature has marked out for him, resembling a swimmer who is obliged to follow the current that carries him along;believing he is a free agent, because he sometimes consents...to glide with the stream, which...always hurries him forward; he believes himself to be the master of his condition, because he is obliged to use his arms under the fear of sinking... “
A response to Holbach’s type of hard determinism is soft determinism, or compatibalism, which can be summarized in A.J. Ayer’s work, “Freedom and Necessity”. Soft determinism maintains that all al human behavior is causally determined, but people are responsible for a small portion of their behavior, for which they are not directly acting under constraint.
Ayer’s example for this distinction would be the difference between a kleptomaniac and an ordinary thief. The kleptomaniac must steal as per his condition, whereas the ordinary thief has the option of choosing otherwise. The ordinary thief is not acting under any sort of constraint, according to Ayer, and therefore can be held morally responsible for his actions.
Ayers concludes, “but to say my behaviour (his spelling, not mine) can be predicted is not to say that I am acting under constraint. It is indeed true that I cannot escape my destiny if this is taken to mean no more than that I shall do what I shall do.”
In my opinion, Holbach’s argument is solid, and Ayer’s response is contradicting and goes back to the same question of causality. You cannot say that things are causally ordained and then make exceptions. The analogy of the kleptomaniac and the ordinary thief is unnecessary, because both of them, the klepto through his condition, and the ordinary thief through his upbringing, character, constitution, and circumstances, are both acting under the influence of guiding forces that are beyond their self.

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