Perception and Reality - HELP

[HerNibs]

Little background - I attended a seminar on Emotional Intelligence. Very strange. Not alot of information that I agreed with. But one thing the speaker said really struck me - he said "Perception IS reality".

I guess he noticed me shaking my head and he asked why I didn't agree. Well, being unprepared and partially asleep I wasn't as "on my toes" as I would have like to been. I got out of it by saying that I just didn't agree with the idea and felt that the seminar wasn't the place to have a debate about it. Since then a few of the people who attended the seminar with me have been trying to make me understand that the speaker WAS correct and that perception IS reality.

Help me!!! I can respect that these people firmly feel that what they percieve is their reality. My answer is that their reality and actual reality isn't the same thing. ARRRRRRG!

I am obviously not explaining myself well to these people. I am down to using optical illusions to illustrate what I am trying to explain.

Am I nuts? Is there any way to explain this simply? I am looking for good articles or anything that may help explain that reality and perception are two different things.

HELP!!

Or explain to me why I am wrong. :p

[Eos of the Eons]

Reality-a red rock on the ground.

Perception-a pretty/ugly/interesting/boring rock on the ground.

There is mundane reality with or without life, and then there are humans and other life forms perceiving and interpreting what they see around them.

My reality won't be the same as yours because what you taste won't be exactly what I taste. That is why we all don't like the same things. Some prefer salty to sweet. I prefer sweet to salty.

But sugar is sugar, and it is not any more or less sweet even if you find it sweeter than someone else does.

Even colors aren't the same to everyone. Imagine a colorblind person and what they see around them is not what you see.

Colors are there, but whether or not we see them, they simply exist with whatever properties that make certain light rays bounce off of them that we can or can't see. Even in the dark a red rock is still the same with the properties that make it red.

So yeah, it's not the same thing, because everyone's perception is different. Reality to you is your perception, but it's not "reality" as in what is there if we are not there.

I hope that makes sense.

[Yahweh]

Originally posted by Eos of the Eons
Reality-a red rock on the ground.
The "red" is a percieved quality of the rock.

:p

[Yahweh]

Originally posted by HerNibs
Little background - I attended a seminar on Emotional Intelligence. Very strange. Not alot of information that I agreed with. But one thing the speaker said really struck me - he said "Perception IS reality".
From the background context, that being an Emotional Intelligence Seminar, I think its reasonable to assume the phrase "Perception IS Reality" is not necessarily a Philosophical Statement. It seems to be a rather empty phrase, it probably carries an empty sentiment, it has a certain ring to the ear that makes the statement appear to be more meaningful than it actually is.

In any sense, if I were to go about treating this as a Philosophical statement, it would take a very small amount of effort explaining why "Perception IS Reality" is absurd (I'll put this extremely simply, in case you need to say something succinct and snappy the next time you are put on the spot):

"Perception IS Reality" is a nice thought, however if all there is to reality is perception, then most people would not find that favorable. I think I'd have a hard time telling you that you are nothing more than "sense data" and that you really dont exist simply because I cannot directly percieve your own existence. (Likewise, you wont convince me I dont exist for that same reason). There, we have reason to assume that other minds exist.

I think its reasonable to assume that things which experience personally can never be experienced by you either (i.e. the "red" to me is a personal sensation only something which can ever be experienced by me). However, take my hand: I can percieve my hand, it may exist as sense data to me, however you also see my hand. Clearly the hand is not merely a sense-experience occuring in my mind, my hand exists external to my mind. I have another hand which you can see. And there you have it, there exists 2 objects (my hands) which exists in external reality, therefore Perception Is NOT Reality. Perception is, at best, a sensory representation of external reality.

Philospher G. E. Moore argues that there is a distinction between mental facts and physical facts. He says there is no good reason to hold, as many philosophers of his time did, that every physical fact is logically dependent on mental facts, or that every physical fact is causally dependent on mental facts. An example of a physical fact is "The mantlepiece is at present nearer to this body than that bookcase is." Mental facts include "I am conscious now" and "I am seeing something now."

[Eos of the Eons]

Originally posted by Yahweh

The "red" is a percieved quality of the rock.

:p

But the rock and other red things share a qualities that make it red, whether or not we or anything can percieve it.

Now I have to go read your long post, but I have to go percieve a movie right now.

Cheers!

[epepke]

Originally posted by HerNibs
I guess he noticed me shaking my head and he asked why I didn't agree. Well, being unprepared and partially asleep I wasn't as "on my toes" as I would have like to been. I got out of it by saying that I just didn't agree with the idea and felt that the seminar wasn't the place to have a debate about it. Since then a few of the people who attended the seminar with me have been trying to make me understand that the speaker WAS correct and that perception IS reality.

My advice is give it up. You seem to be dealing with postmodern mush. Not much you can do about it except strike the offenders with an inflated pig bladder.

However, if you can get one of them to assert that "knowledge is socially constructed," I offer free use of the following retort. It is best delivered after nodding sagely:

"Yes, knowledge is socially constructed. So is stupidity, for exactly the same reasons. It's a good point, unless one is interested in distinguishing between knowledge and stupidity. This requires other means."

[HerNibs]

Thanks for all the great responses.

I just get very frustrated with a lot of these people. I start to feel like I am speaking a different language. Perception and reality seem like two very different things. There is actual reality and there is well...my (or their) interpretation or "perception" of that actual reality. Ok, so it is a clear distinction in my mind.

Then again, these same people are advocates of touch therapy.

The seminar was a horrid waste of time. All I got out of it was "do what people like, be part of the popular crowd and you will succeed". Blah. Well, what should I expect, it is the government. :D

Thanks again.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by HerNibs
Little background - I attended a seminar on Emotional Intelligence. Very strange. Not alot of information that I agreed with. But one thing the speaker said really struck me - he said "Perception IS reality".

I guess he noticed me shaking my head and he asked why I didn't agree. Well, being unprepared and partially asleep I wasn't as "on my toes" as I would have like to been. I got out of it by saying that I just didn't agree with the idea and felt that the seminar wasn't the place to have a debate about it. Since then a few of the people who attended the seminar with me have been trying to make me understand that the speaker WAS correct and that perception IS reality.

Help me!!! I can respect that these people firmly feel that what they percieve is their reality. My answer is that their reality and actual reality isn't the same thing. ARRRRRRG!

I am obviously not explaining myself well to these people. I am down to using optical illusions to illustrate what I am trying to explain.

Am I nuts? Is there any way to explain this simply? I am looking for good articles or anything that may help explain that reality and perception are two different things.

HELP!!

Or explain to me why I am wrong. :p

If it's actually a philosophical point he's making, then perception is reality, yes. Optical illusions do not demonstrate a perception independent reality.

Hardly anyone agrees with me though, so I'm wondering if he really meant it in a literal sense?

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Yahweh

The "red" is a percieved quality of the rock.

:p

Which is therefore a real quality of the rock.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Yahweh


"Perception IS Reality" is a nice thought, however if all there is to reality is perception, then most people would not find that favorable. I think I'd have a hard time telling you that you are nothing more than "sense data"



Her or his body, not their self.




and that you really dont exist simply because I cannot directly percieve your own existence. (Likewise, you wont convince me I dont exist for that same reason). There, we have reason to assume that other minds exist.



Huh?



I think its reasonable to assume that things which experience personally can never be experienced by you either (i.e. the "red" to me is a personal sensation only something which can ever be experienced by me). However, take my hand: I can percieve my hand, it may exist as sense data to me, however you also see my hand. Clearly the hand is not merely a sense-experience occuring in my mind, my hand exists external to my mind.



It's not constitutive of your mind. The hypothesis of a mind-independent hand which respectively causes yours and hers/his sense perceptions is not required. It's unjustified metaphysical speculation.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by epepke
[B]

My advice is give it up. You seem to be dealing with postmodern mush. Not much you can do about it except strike the offenders with an inflated pig bladder.


Hmmm . .I never realised Berkeley (1685-1753) was a postmodernist! LOL

[Yahweh]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
----------------------------------------------------
and that you really dont exist simply because I cannot directly percieve your own existence. (Likewise, you wont convince me I dont exist for that same reason). There, we have reason to assume that other minds exist.
-----------------------------------------------------

Huh?
Word salad, yes it is. It was typed rather quickly so me and Sister Yahweh could drive out and get a Cappuccino.

Short story short [sic]: I would seem like the recognition of other minds kinda puts a damper on the solipsist "perception is reality" mentality.

It's not constitutive of your mind. The hypothesis of a mind-independent hand which respectively causes yours and hers/his sense perceptions is not required. It's unjustified metaphysical speculation.
Can you dumb this down for me? :cool:

[sorgoth]

Originally posted by Yahweh

Can you dumb this down for me? :cool:

It's nice having other people ask this for me :D.

Here's one argument of mine: How can we perceive anything if it doesn't exist? Sure, it may be grossly disorted, and may even not exist anymore, but it had to have existed at one time for us to imagine it, right?

[Eos of the Eons]

Originally posted by sorgoth


It's nice having other people ask this for me :D.

Here's one argument of mine: How can we perceive anything if it doesn't exist? Sure, it may be grossly disorted, and may even not exist anymore, but it had to have existed at one time for us to imagine it, right?

If even half of the crap in my dreams ever existed, then I'm going to hide under my bed forever.

All you have to do is assume something out of a few factors without finding out why something really happens.

Let's say you are walking in the woods a bit and you suddenly feel this wispy sticky stuff attach itself to your face. Now, we know that is a spider web, but maybe you've never heard of a spider web before. What is it? It's an alien thing trying to get itself on you to do whatever, or it's a ghost trail, or...

Now you are freaked out a bit and start to hear noises. Then you see another ghost trail! OMG! Then you see this thing, and it's not a ghost but something indescribably and scary and white with horns!

Some people have more active imaginations than others. They can delude themselves into believing the craziest things because they have misinterpreted an experience.

I can't believe some people don't dream in color. Everything in my dreams are larger, smellier...I've even been shot in my dream and it hurt like a &^$(#!

I'd put Stephen King out of business if I tried just a little bit! The monsters/things/ etc. I dream up are quite a mishmosh of sights and experiences I've had throughout my life rolled up into one freakish thing. I wake up wondering how I'm even still alive sometimes. You should see my Freddy Kruger. He's uglier and scarier and and and...

All your brain has to do is build on some minor experiences to come up with something kinda original. There are even weird physical experiences I've had that I never have in real life. Do you know what it would feel like to be playdough? Or to breath Jello without suffocating? I've dreamt those feelings and they are so gosh darn odd.

I for one can say you can imagine things that can't exist. One time I was falling down 5 stories and I was hitting the ground hands first (fully expecting to feel the pain of my arms crunching and my skull smashing into cement). Well, I landed on my hands and bounced. Up up up...and down to bounce again. Weird.

Are there bouncy things you can put on your hands that can save you if you fall off a building? Nope.

Or this time I was high up on a mountain in this weird restaurant with a glass floor that extended over the cliff. Oh man, that was a trip looking through the glass at your feet and only seeing air... and the ground/other mountains wayyy down below. My skull kinda crawled and I grabbed for a table.

I've never heard of a restaurant like that, but I had a similar feeling when I went up the Calgary Tower and looked outside, it just wasn't as intense as my dream experience.

Know what I mean? Humans can dream up all kinds of things.

[CFLarsen]

Originally posted by sorgoth
Here's one argument of mine: How can we perceive anything if it doesn't exist? Sure, it may be grossly disorted, and may even not exist anymore, but it had to have existed at one time for us to imagine it, right?

And, a follow-up question: How can we perceive the same thing, if it doesn't exist?

[MRC_Hans]

My take on it:

Perception is reality: Correct.
Perception = reality: Not correct.

Perception is, of course, reality, that is, if you have a perception, that perception is part of reality, no matter if it pertains to the surrounding world or not.

But perception does not EQUAL reality (which is the meaning I understand in the capitalized "IS").

My arguments for perception not being equal to reality are twofold:

1) We have often discovered parts of reality that have obviously existed long before we perceived them. So we must assume that other parts of reality are also existing independently of perception.

2) It is possible to have perceptions that are not depentent on objective reality, e.g. hallucinations.

Hans

[Soapy Sam]

Hernibs- No, you're not nuts. You are sane and right.

Perception is the process whereby the existence of external forces and objects is mapped onto an image in a mind or other information processing system. Any physical perceptual system is subject to distortion, but this does not distort reality.

Robots have perception- much more limited than human. Perception is not conscious in machines and is mostly not conscious in humans. Consciousness is not a requirement.)

Perception is part of reality. (Perception itself can be modelled, but that model is itself part of reality.)
The reverse is not true: Reality is not part of perception.

Reality is not part of anything. Reality simply is.
Reality exists. Even if every perceptive lifeform and robot in the universe vanished NOW, reality would continue to exist.

Reality can be perceived . That is obvious.
To equate reality with perception however, is false.

A cannon shell entering a human brain at well above the speed of sound can destroy all perceptual systems before the nervous system is aware of it. In such a case, the system never registers its own end. Is it therefore, still alive?
Hardly.

A fever sufferer sees the room expand and contract. The nurse does not. Two perceptive systems model reality, one accurately, one distorted by system failure. Does the room change ?
Hardly.

Reality and perception are quite different.

If what the course "facilitator" meant was that socially our view of reality is conditioned (even in some ways constrained) by our perception, that is both true and indeed, "facile."

Your experience is instructive in at least two respects:-
1. You now understand better that one way to appreciate the truth is by hearing silly people talking nonsense.
2. When you are sure of your ground, you should not let yourself be baffled with bull.

Stick around. There's lots to learn around here- some of it from folk who know, some not.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Soapy Sam


Stick around. There's lots to learn around here- some of it from folk who know, some not. [/B]

There's f*ck all to learn from the mindless cretins who inhabit this board. You just need look no further than to most of the contributions to this thread.

[Soapy Sam]

Ian, who is neither determined nor random, illustrates my point with his customary clarity.

[Wudang]

Apropos of not vey much, whenever I see "Reality" I am always reminded of the character in, I think, Burgess' "Earthly Powers" who described "people who talk about Reality in such loud voices you can hardly hear yourself giggle".
I had too many of those debates as a student and had too ask repeatedly, as others here have, "What do you mean by 'is'?". It's a semantically-overloaded term which can mean "is the same as" (which itself lends to different interpretations - identity, similarity etc) or "exhibits the property of" (this stone is red), establishes a defining characteristic of (water is liquid), etc.
I like going back to Russell's theory of types - in the phrase "Perception is Reality" both the nouns are intended as abstracts, yes? So the "is" must be something that applies to abstracts which here I'd assume to be a statement of identity. I sometimes refer to this as the Calvin theory of observed reality - if you pull the blankets over your head the monster can't get you. Since "perception is reality" then non-perception is non-reality, so what you can't perceive can't be real and can't hurt you. Until it does hurt you and then you perceive it as pain, so where was it until it hurt you? Sometimes that level of simplicity forces them to sharpen up their terms a bit. Sometimes they veer off into "but it wasn't real for you" which takes the argument from the profound to the trivial. Which is often the case.

[Soapy Sam]

The main danger of Calvinism is suffocation.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Wudang
I sometimes refer to this as the Calvin theory of observed reality - if you pull the blankets over your head the monster can't get you. Since "perception is reality" then non-perception is non-reality, so what you can't perceive can't be real and can't hurt you. Until it does hurt you and then you perceive it as pain, so where was it until it hurt you?


Yup, another person who understands f*ck all about anything.


Sometimes that level of simplicity forces them to sharpen up their terms a bit. Sometimes they veer off into "but it wasn't real for you" which takes the argument from the profound to the trivial. Which is often the case.

Not me. I just say you comprehensively fail to understand what is meant by perception is reality. You are hopelessly brainwashed into passive acceptance of a perception independent reality. You're unable to think outside your mindset. And why? Because you're stupid, that's why.

You might as well say that those who advocate perception is reality can't believe a released object will fall when they close their eyes :rolleyes:

[!Xx+-Rational-+xX!]

Take a moment and pay attention to everything about your consciousness! Now you would have to be insane to conclude that this may not be physical! Any normal person should just feel those neurons firing and say “material values obviously create this illusion”! I can just feel those exciting chemical reactions making this p-zombie experience possible!

That’s right reducing the delusion of consciousness down to chemical reactions and neurons firing are far more exciting than any of this afterlife nonsense! Natural selection put us here to do this! I can just imagine the excitement a robot would feel if shown the material process of its creation, only to know that it would soon cease to exist when we decide to shut it down!





And reality is external because that is what science says!

[Soapy Sam]

Or possibly, just possibly - science says reality is external because that's what it has found. ?

[Jeff Corey]

"Reality is a crutch for people who can't handle drugs." Tom Waits

I see Ian is still utilizing his brilliant rhetorical strategies, and Towel Wipe follows him to clean up.

[epepke]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Hmmm . .I never realised Berkeley (1685-1753) was a postmodernist! LOL

No more and no less than that Hieronymus Bosch (1450-1516) was a surrealist.

[BillyTK]

I skipped a seminar on Emotional Intelligence recently because I was too hungover and the precis made me feel nauseous. "Perception IS reality" sounds like a soundbite which hinders, rather than helps, understanding of a complex and fascinating area.

So I'd like to recommend a book by Oliver Sachs called An Anthropologist on Mars (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0679756973/102-8311048-5851333?v=glance), which is a collection of case studies on various neurological conditions, and is worthwhile reading in and of itself. The titular essay is about a scientist who has Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism which, amongst various other effects, inhibits understanding of human social relationships, and as a result feels a closer kinship with the animals she works with than her human colleagues.

But I digress. Of particular interest is the first essay, about a painter who loses his colour vision, and perceives the world in a peculiar and at times frightening, monochrome. The interesting bit is when, after a series of examinations, it's discovered that damage has occurred to the part of his brain which deals with interpreting his visual perceptions; whilst he can still "see" colours, he can no longer understand what those colours are (you'll have to read the book for the science stuff). So in a very real (;)) sense perception is reality, in terms of the reality we experience rather than in terms of physical reality, because as we have no way of experiencing reality directly, what we do experience is a result of interpretation of our senses. Of course, that explanation can't be reduced to a sexy soundbite... maybe something like "That cup of coffee isn't hot, it's just excited..." would be better?

[epepke]

Originally posted by BillyTK
So I'd like to recommend a book by Oliver Sachs called An Anthropologist on Mars (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0679756973/102-8311048-5851333?v=glance), which is a collection of case studies on various neurological conditions, and is worthwhile reading in and of itself.

Seconded. Brilliant book.

[69dodge]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
You might as well say that those who advocate perception is reality can't believe a released object will fall when they close their eyesForget about falling. What do idealists mean when they say the object even exists when they close their eyes?

[Soapy Sam]

What eyes?

[Kiless]

Hello!

This is my first post, ain't I proud... :rolleyes:

Right, EI.


I'm currently writing a paper for one of my M.Ed units, on EI and MI and IQ (and those are abbreviations which have given this teetotaller one hell of a hangover...).


And there’s a link here that may interest you:
http://eqi.org/history.htm

…and here’s the interesting part that I read from that very page (I have edited for space… sort of…. But have not changed the meaning):

“So in 1995 the book "Emotional Intelligence" was published. The book made it to the cover of Time Magazine, at least in the American market. Goleman began appearing on American television shows such as Oprah Winfrey and Phil Donahue...As a result of his own and his publisher's efforts, the book became an international best seller. It remained on the New York Times best-seller list for approximately one year, which one can assume made Daniel Goleman a multi-millionaire.
In his book he collected a lot of interesting information on the brain, emotions, and behavior. Goleman offered very few of his own ideas, though he did share a few of his personal prejudices and beliefs. Mostly what he did was collect the work of many others, organize it, and dramatize it. …in my opinion Goleman basically stole the term "emotional intelligence" from Mayer and Salovey and greatly misrepresented the public about what emotional intelligence actually is.
Since his rise to fame in 1995, Goleman seems to have ignored the actual research on emotional intelligence and moved even further from scientific truth. This, however, does not seem to have stopped his popularity as a speaker and consultant, and most people still believe that his version of emotional intelligence is the correct one. So many people have now taken hold of his version of emotional intelligence, cited him as the "guru" and promoted his misleading version of emotional intelligence that it is now difficult to separate truth from fiction.”

…which has since understandably altered the paper I was writing and has led me to rethink this EI stuff that my Uni Prof. was trying to get me to follow. I’m still looking up more information, but I must admit that I was having my doubts anyway having read “Working with EI’ beforehand and found it totally unusable for what I was doing and basically just a bunch of unsupported anecdotes. :(

Goleman comes under attack here:
http://eqi.org/gole.htm
…and to finish it all of, I think Oliver Sacks is bloody fabulous. :) At least his 'anecdotes' are proper case studies with references. A lot of Goleman's material just seems flatulent.

Thanks for listening.

[Soapy Sam]

So what is EI anyway?

In 200 words or less. (Short ones preferably).

[Soapy Sam]

So what is EI anyway?

In 200 words or less. (Short ones preferably).


Edit- Oops, Double post, must clean this mouse.
And it won't delete. Why not I wonder?

[Underemployed]

Soapy Sam said:
The main danger of Calvinism is suffocation.

And the main danger faced by Calvin was Hobbes' repeated teachings about the true nature of reality.

My favourite Calvin & Hobbes strip is one where they are walking in the woods discussing fate. Calvin argues that he can't be blamed for anything since it is fate at work. Hobbes trips him up into a muddy puddle, saying "Too bad you were fated to do that." "That wasn't fate!" screams Calvin.

Bill Watterson put many such philosophical viewpoints into his cartoons. There's another one where he attempts to make the monsters go away by ceasing to believe that they exist. But sure enough, they are still there, under the bed....

Perhaps we could modify the statement to say that 'Perception is YOUR reality'. Even as the monsters seize you and drag you under the bed, if you sincerely believe you're on a slide into a sandpit then that's your reality.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Underemployed


And the main danger faced by Calvin was Hobbes' repeated teachings about the true nature of reality.

My favourite Calvin & Hobbes strip is one where they are walking in the woods discussing fate. Calvin argues that he can't be blamed for anything since it is fate at work. Hobbes trips him up into a muddy puddle, saying "Too bad you were fated to do that." "That wasn't fate!" screams Calvin.

Bill Watterson put many such philosophical viewpoints into his cartoons. There's another one where he attempts to make the monsters go away by ceasing to believe that they exist. But sure enough, they are still there, under the bed....

Perhaps we could modify the statement to say that 'Perception is YOUR reality'. Even as the monsters seize you and drag you under the bed, if you sincerely believe you're on a slide into a sandpit then that's your reality.

No, perception is reality full stop (or period as the denizens of the USA would say).

[Joe_Black]

Perception is reality. Your perception is your reality, the next persons is theres, How do we both know that we taste marmite in the same way? we don't.

Individual differences in cognition make us all see the world in very different ways. These are not just biological but often learnt too.

[Prospero]

I have some background understanding of the whole Emotional Intelligence thing and I think you might have taken the speaker out of context. EI's really big on having a perception of reality that is, well, productive and pro-society. By them saying "Perception IS Reality," thy mean it far more subjectively than I think you interpretted it. Take someone with a phobia with a very prevalent focus, like social situations. To them, the world's an awfully scary place; their perception of their reality makes public places terrifying. If you believe the world's out to get you, through self-fulfilling prophecy, it probably is. You'll put yourself in situations to make it seem that way because that's your perception actually shaping your reality. There's a lot of different angles and aspects to it, but the key point is that everyone's reality is subjective and because we are all human and are only capable of gaining information regarding reality through inherently faulty sensory organs, humans are incapable of perceiving actual reality.

[Perpetual Ponderer]

Perception and reality are bound in complicated ways.

Your experiences can be considered real, in the sense that they are real to you (you can recall experiencing them, and can describe them in coherent ways). But your experiences do not have to correspond to external stimuli (i.e. the true state of existence that exists apart from your perception of it)

Hallucinations are real to the hallucinator, but that does not mean that what they are hallucinating exists in reality (i.e. externally verifiable state of being).

So...perception can be reality for the perceiver, but this does not equate perception with the factual state of existence that exists independently of the perceiver. Information gained through perception may be "real," but in no way does this mean that this information is necessarily "factual."

[Cinorjer]

After reading the website, I'd have to agree that the speaker must be talking about a person's subjective experience of the world we live in. In that context, what I call reality is determined by my perceptions to a great extent. I see, feel, touch, hear, and interact with the world around me, and that my reality.

But there's a problem with this approach, even on the subjective level. What we call reality is not just a set of stimulated nerve endings or perceptions. From the time we are babies, we're hardwired to make sense of our surroundings. We form conclusions, we anticipate, we assign meaning, we gather information from other sources and form abstract constructions. In the end, we develop a belief system about what reality is.

And thus, perception is not our reality, because reality has to make sense to us. Our perceptions are filtered through this belief system to assign meaning. Saying simply "Perception is reality" is a vast simplification of an incredibly complex mental process.

[Kiless]

The first appendix in Goleman's 'Working with Emotional Intelligence' is a nice summary of what he says it is. You can breeze through that chapter in a bookstore if you don't want to buy the whole thing. ;) I've got it as a part of an assignment I'm doing.

[Boo]

An interesting thread. EI *argh* One of the therapists working with my autistic twins tried to make this the basis for their therapies. *blech, ptooey*

As far as the concept of perception and reality and along the lines of Oliver Sachs, I had a conversation once with a young man that is a diagnosed schizophrenic. He explained, quite lucidly, how his reality overlapped what he knew to be the reality perceived by others. He stated that while completely aware that one existed only for him it was as tangible as the other. All of his senses functioned in that reality, just as they did in the other. A crisis would occur for him when his 'reality' would completely block out the one that everyone else 'existed' in. It was no less real for him then 'ours' and at those times was the only 'reality' that existed for him. As such he was forced to live that reality. When not in crisis the two existed side by side and he had to make concious decisions to react to the one that he knew was 'perceived' by everyone around him.

It was a very powerful conversation and one that left with me with a greater understanding of and appreciation for the difficulties he and others like him faced.

One of the greatest challenges and mysteries is undertsanding how mind, brain, conciousness interact. I can only hope that one day working from the glimpses that Temple Grandin, Oliver Sachs and others have given of those places, that I might understand the 'reality' my children perceive.



Boo

[Kiless]

Yes, my lecturer is very much into EI but I'm having more and more doubts with the wider reading I'm doing.

What about multiple intelligences? Anyone got feedback on that notion? Australia is currently under attack for its misunderstanding and misapplication of MI teaching.

[drkitten]

Originally posted by Kiless


What about multiple intelligences? Anyone got feedback on that notion? Australia is currently under attack for its misunderstanding and misapplication of MI teaching.

Interesting. Got any details?

I am deeply suspicious of the idea and most presentations of "multiple intelligences," but I'm also suspicious of most presentations of single intelligences, either.

Intelligence, as defined by practicing psychologists, is a statistical artifact that we postulate to explain the correlation in performance among various cognitive tasks. Basically, a "smart" person is likely to be better at analogies, solve math problems faster, solve mazes faster, etc. etc. (think of all the IQ-test problems you've been asked to solve in your life for examples). So back in the early 20th century, people applied some strong statistical models to a battery of such tests and came up with a single number which captured as much of the variation as possible in a single parameter -- this became known as IQ, because "factor g," the original name, sounds stupid.

If you don't insist on resolving everything into a single number, you can get more numbers (and a better capturing of the variance) by more sophisticated statistics. But it's still arguably just a statistical artifact.

(Stephen Jay Gould has a very good discussion of these issues in The Mismeasure of Man, particularly in the sixth chapter. I recommend it.)

[Kiless]

Yep, will post a snippet of the article I have about how mad Gardner is about Aussie schools when I come home from work. Insomnia has its drawbacks... eventually dawn comes. :(

[Piscivore]

The premises (as I see it) are these:

1) One's perception shapes one's reality
2) One's perceived reality < external objective reality
3) One's perceived reality cannot = another's perceived reality
4) One's perceived reality is subject to change by new
perceptions, external objective reality is not.

Comments?