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[radanax]

"All we have to believe with is our senses, the tools we use to perceive the world; our sight, our touch, our memory. If they lie to us, then nothing can be trusted. And even if we do not believe, then still we cannot travel in any other way than the road our senses show us; and we must walk that road to the end."
--American Gods

Comments

[aviolentrage]

Accurate certainly does have meaning, I would argue, for we live our lives in a very narrow scope, and perception--when taken as truth, as Gaiman was discussing in his quote--colors our impression of what reality is. One can theorize about the truth behind everyday assumptions, but surely, if someone tripping on LSD claims to see people around him, his senses could conceivably be deceptive, and the reality could be that the people weren't there. In this case, would you argue that they were there?

Realize here that I'm not arguing that what he sees is based on nothing; what I'm saying is that there can be causes that affect our extremely limited sense of perception to the point where it blurs or even hides the truth.

Or perhaps you're talking about something more complicated, saying that the senses themselves can't be wrong, because all they themselves do is interpret. To that I would reply with two things: Gaiman wasn't necessarily asserting that our senses are "wrong"; instead, I think, there's the possibility that we could interpret our senses in such a way as to lead us to false conclusions. Secondly, without extensive medical research far beyond the scope of anything of which we are currently capable, we cannot know anything about the characteristics of our perception.

[aviolentrage]

I suppose one would need more than medical research to actually prove these things, come to think about it. There're lots of potential roadblocks in the way. If you're acquainted with philosophy, as I imagine you are, you surely know that it's highly debatable that anything outside of our consciousness can even be proven to exist.