Questions
Okay people, I'm curious. I've been taking my Perception class for about 6 weeks now and it's raised some interesting questions. I have some opinions about some of it but I'd like to get some perspectives from other people, so I thought I'd ask you guys some of the questions the prof has been asking us ( Read more... )
Anyway, the one time I basked in his presence, he talked about one of his exams (could have been a midterm, though) and it concerned ... cheese.
It's been a few years, but the question went something like: "Consider a piece of cheese. We say it has certain properties: colour, texture, aroma. Where are these properties? Where is the smell of the cheese if there is no nose to smell it?"
The key to this, as you're obviously aware, is the name of the course. Perception. For the "sound in a forest", it's simple. Compressions and rarefactions determine the speed of propagation of sound, but unless there is a means by which to register it, all there is is a series of differential pressures of air molecules. It's sort of like the "data / information / knowledge" hierarchy. Data is everywhere. With some intelligence, it can become information, and through interpretation, it can become knowledge. I say "sort of", since I am under the impression that perception is a necessary part of the conversion of data to information and also in the conversion of information to knowledge.
In the end, the question of perception comes down to a defined sequence of events that establish the fine line between reality and not-reality. Perception is a sequence of patterns that we have interpreted and use to interpret new stimuli. A good example would be a photo of a tiny hippo next to a gigantic ant. You know that it's a doctored photo because you have prior knowledge of the relative sizes of these two things outside of this photo. However, if you have never seen a hippo or an ant, you might think that they are indeed that size relative to each other. I believe this works equally well for the person with schizophrenia. The first instance of "hearing" a voice might be shrugged off as an auditory hallucination, however, over a prolonged period of time, it might result in the firm belief that it was Lionel Richie telling them to cleanse the world of The Backstreet Boys.
I'd pay money to see that.
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The sound in the forest is exactly as you described - or at least it is, in my opinion. My prof took it one step further though. He says the crack in the forest does exist because the forest is also inside your head. Which is what got me thinking about the nature of reality and how we understand it.
The schizophrenic learns to hide his delusions because there is no confirmation from other people that what he is hearing is real. However, as you've pointed out, over time he might come to believe that his voices are, in fact, real.
Perception seems to tie right into what we consider consciousness and sentience. It's that act of interpretation that makes it so very interesting. And it's easy to use the neurological explanation - it's my own tendency. But for me, it's kinda like the question of the big bang. Sure, I can get behind that theory, but I can't get my brain around the giant question mark of what conditions existed before a big bang in order for it to happen in the first place. The whole idea of something coming from nothing makes my head hurt, even though I can believe it from a scientific, theoretical perspective.
I think I'm rambling now, so I'll stop.
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