A little while back, someone wrote to me with the question, “Are things experienced by the senses real?” I responded to them as concisely as I could:
The senses have the same relationship to what is sensed as a thermometer has to heat.
Just as the read out of a thermometer bears little or no resemblance to the kinetic energy (vibration) of atoms and molecules that is loosely said to possess heat, the “read out” of the senses bears little or no resemblance to what is sensed. For instance, when photons of a certain wavelength excite some of the optical cells in my eye, I have the sensation of seeing yellow. But yellow in no way resembles the photons that ultimately produce the sensation of yellow.
Given that what I’ve said seems to be the case, the senses might be thought of as instruments which do not reproduce what they sense, but instead interpret what they sense. This means that seeing, tasting, touching, hearing, smelling, or otherwise sensing is not representational of what is sensed. Consequently, if seeing, tasting, touching, etc. are considered experiences, then those experiences are certainly not representational of the world we might suppose exists beyond the senses.
Our senses are very useful as tools for navigating the world, but they should not be thought of as tools that mirror or reproduce the world.
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4 responses so far ↓
aos // April 15, 2008 at 3:08 pm
That sounds right to me and yet it bothers me. I find the world such a wonder that to think of the finest moments being more a product of sodium and chlorine changing densities in channels in my body than some “real” externality is something I prefer to ignore.
The interesting offshoot of this is that you could then consider art a celebration of our nervous system rather than the world.
Paul // April 18, 2008 at 2:44 am
“The interesting offshoot of this is that you could then consider art a celebration of our nervous system rather than the world.”
I think that’s an astute observation, AOS. I suppose that to some extent, the recognition that our senses do not reproduce the world is all the more reason for art to expand beyond the purely representational and literal. I’m going to need to think more about your point. Thank you for such an exciting idea!
Faisal // April 20, 2008 at 12:36 am
An example of how our senses might trick us is when we dream. When you are dreaming about some nonsense stuff, you feel as it’s REAL, and you see, hear, smell, everything overthere, but once you wake up you notice how ridiculous it would be if that dream was real, but you ALREADY felt it was real when you were dreaming.
Paul // April 20, 2008 at 2:54 am
That’s an excellent point, Faisal. The mere feeling something is real is no sure evidence that it reproduces anything real beyond itself. Even when I’m awake, the feeling I have that I am seeing something real when I see colors is no sure evidence those colors reproduce anything real beyond themselves.
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