Sense data

What appear to the senses instantly such as the color, texture, and smell are called sensations while the real color, if any, is known as self-datum’. Now, Russell criticizes two philosophers who first brought this up before him. Bishop Berkley in his ‘Three Dialogues Between Hyles and Philonous, in opposition to skeptics and atheists’, demonstrates his belief that matter is nothing but a collection of thoughts in an individual’s mind. Berkley presents his belief in a form of an argument between two men, Hylas who believes in the existence of matter and Philonous who harshly points out the flaws and contradictions in his belief. Bishop vividly delivers the argument that the existence of matter can be doubted though some his arguments are relatively complex in Russell’s opinion. Russell stresses on the fact that Berkley agrees with sense data being a proof of presence of matter but he does reject that matter such as a table is material or non-metal. Throughout the dialogue, Bishop concludes that matter is all an idea in God’s mind independent of all humans’ minds. On the other hand, Leibniz, another sophisticated thinker, has a somewhat similar opinion as Berkley’s except…

Moore proposes a then-revolutionary idea of “Sense Data,” (28) which represents all the data received through the senses, hence the name “Sense Data.” In this essay, I plan to decipher the nebulous world of Sense Data, and deconstruct Moore’s claims with my own soul-field theory. Further, I will debate connections between Moore’s theory and skepticism of the external world. Sense Data describes the direct signals your brain receives and interprets every day. Moore’s own definition of Sense…

Indirect realism as the more plausible perception theory Indirect realism is a more plausible theory of perception than direct realism. Direct realism was first described by Aristotle. He described how a seer learns about an object by directly seeing it impressed on the eye. In other words, it is where external material objects are directly experienced, without sense-data (Bernecker, 2008). René Descartes and John Locke were supporters of indirect realism, the position that our conscious…

also exist) and is mind-independent, meaning the color and the object exist without the mind of a human somehow viewing it (whether through sight, smell, feel, or any of their senses). Then the opposite subjectivist view in which color is dependant on the viewer. In this view, external objects may or may not exist but the colors people see are dependant on the the impression they receive as the color. In this way the color exists only in the mind as a part of perception. Berkeley writes a…

Selection is the first stage in the process of perception, which occurs when the senses receive and attend to certain stimuli over others. It is impossible for the brain to absorb all of the stimuli it is presented with, thus when information is received the mind unconsciously responds to what is familiar to the individual 's environment (Boundless, 2016.) Perception is influenced by our personal motives, incentives, impulses or drives. (Boundless, 2016) Before the brain can categorize or…

What is my purpose? Since I’ve known how to talk, read, and write I’ve longed to know what my purpose in my existence is. I guess you can say, I’m looking for freedom from emotional disturbance and anxiety. In other words I am searching for what will help me achieve Ataraxia. This concept has been derived from the Greek philosophers. However, my personal Ataraxia has longed for the answer to God’s existence. The philosophies I will entail within my research paper are; The Pragmatic Theory,…

sensory modalities and integrates it smoothly. In most of the time we are not even aware of the modalities of the information, rather all we are conscious of is the information itself. Having more senses provides more accuracy in different dimensions of an event such as time and space. For example, one sense is less accurate about carrying time dimension of an event, while other is less accurate about estimating the location. Altogether multiple channels provide better accuracy of perception. It…

other philosophers have answered in many different but often similar ways. Problems such as is sense data a sign of physical objects, is there matter at all and if so, what is the nature of a physical object (Bertrand Russell 12-13)? From these questions he later asks: can we take other people’s perceptions into consideration, and are there other people at all (Bertrand Russell 21)? For the most part, he recognizes and acknowledges what other philosophers such as Berkeley and Descartes have…

incline to follow the philosophies of the school of rationalism. The advantage of rationalism is that it relies solely on logic and reason to seek absolute truths. Empiricism’s flaw is that it relies merely on sensory observation to seek conclusions, which are subjective and can be deceptive. Many times I have been mislead by my senses, making me hesitant to trust empirical observations. I trust logic and reason over my own sensory observations when making conclusions in my own life. In the NHL,…

What if we could one day feel things we couldn’t see, or taste sounds? As strange as that question sounds, it could be reality according to David Eagleman. In his TED talk he outlines several ways to substitute or increase our senses with technology. Some of these innovations might even be cheaper or replace the current technology being used. He explains that each animal has its own “umwelt” or surrounding world. For instance, humans can see less than ten trillionth of light rays, these rays…