Wrote this for ToK, and I am goddamn proud of it. >:) I PROMISE I'LL UPDATE SOON I SWEAR
When should we trust our senses to give us truth?
The immediate response to this question would be: how do you define truth? Truth is an incredibly broad concept, and so for the purposes of this essay I will be focusing in on an area of knowledge in which our senses are incredibly important – science. Scientific truth is based off of observation, and creating generalizations to form theories. Scientific truth is what is accepted to be true to the general public – in order for something to be accepted to be true is needs justification and experimentation; everything in science needs to have factual or observational proof. This being said, scientific truth is not absolute, because scientific truth relies on observation. There are a number of problems with observation, which I will discuss later on. In essence, our senses are subject to many different external and internal variables which can affect what we perceive. This doesn’t mean our senses will always lead us to false truth, only that our senses can be misleading. Therefore, our senses are never 100% reliable – there is always a chance they are wrong. In reference to the initial question, this means that we should never be able to fully trust our senses to give us scientific truth.
Our senses are vulnerable to a number of external variables. Our senses all depend on external organs relaying sensory input to the brain; if these organs are harmed or obstructed our ability to observe is severely limited. This could be as simple as putting a blindfold on, to suffering from a stroke and not being able to feel on one side of your body. If this happens we lose our ability to, in the former example, see. If we are unable to see, how can we trust ourselves to make simple observations? We can’t – if we can’t observe thing properly, then our senses cannot lead us to scientific truth. Not only are our senses vulnerable to trauma and obstruction, but there are numerous diseases and conditions which affect our ability to perceive. Glaucoma, for example, is a disease which affects the eyes. It is a gradual process where the patient’s vision slowly diminishes – most patients do not know they are affected by it until it’s too late. My mother recently discovered she has glaucoma when she was driving, and noticed that she couldn’t see the passenger seat in her peripheral vision. In a scientific experiment, this could be catastrophic. Science relies on precision and detail; failing to notice, for instance, that all objects fall at the same rate means that we are not achieving scientific truth. The scientific truth would be that all objects fall at the same rate due to a force known as gravity; this fact has been clearly established throughout history and has yet to be proven wrong. The reason this is significant is because some of these diseases, like glaucoma, are not noticeable until we fail to observe something. By the time one notices this fact, our scientific truth is already incorrect. Now, in argument, one might say this is assuming we are merely using one way of knowing: sense perception. For example, I am partially blind and measure the height of a plant wrong. Instead, I could ask somebody else to measure it for me; I could try and compare its height with other objects and try and reason out what its estimated height could be; or I could simply know from experience that all sunflowers reach a maximum height of 3m. I still achieve scientific truth. This is true, there are other alternatives, but these alternatives are less likely to lead to scientific truth. Scientific truth is based off of observation – we know that Halley’s Comet comes once every 75 years because scientists see the comet and record it, which is accepted as scientific truth. Someone didn’t tell the scientists about Halley’s Comet and the scientists wouldn’t be able to reason out that the comet would return in 75 years. Observation is the most likely to lead to scientific truth.
Our senses are also vulnerable to internal or mental variables. These ‘mental variables’ are internal conditions which affect perception. They could be described as internal biases to sensory information. Selective attentiveness is a term given to when we subconsciously filter out sensory information, essentially being able to block out noise and smells. We do this consciously, for example, in a school classroom. I know for me, I do not want to be constantly listening to the drone of the radiator. Our brains are able to read this thought and slowly block out sensory information. This is not done consciously of course; the second we think of the radiator we will start to hear it again. The brain also filters our information which it deems to be “unimportant”, like the radiator in this case. The reason this has negative implications is if our brains are constantly filtering through information without us knowing, then we can never trust ourselves to be observing every detail. For example, there are certain ranges of sound that our ears can not usually hear; people under 18 can’t usually hear frequencies over 22 kHz unless we concentrate on the sound.[1] If this is relevant to scientific truth, like during an experiment to determine the effect of age on hearing, this may lead our results to be incorrect. If our brain is filtering our information it deems to be “unimportant” then we have no idea if what we’re observing is the scientific truth. Now, our brains only filter our information we’re not paying attention to, and so in response one might say that during an experiment a scientist is completely devoting to their task and would be paying full attention to what they’re doing. This would mean that our brains wouldn’t be filtering out important observations. However, there are still internal distractions which may cause someone to not observe something correctly. There are many different kinds of internal distractions, such as personal motivation, social and cultural influences, or expectations of oneself. Using personal motivation as an example, if we are not interested in what is being studied, we may not focus as much as we should and miss critical observations. My brain doesn’t even need to filter out information for my observations to be incorrect; I may simply not care enough to record all my observations. Using a personal example, I am not particularly interested in cell division. During a grade 11 experiment, I choose to ignore the fact that one of my specimens did not divide properly. As was explained to me later, there are external factors which affect why a cell divides or not. Therefore, in my experiment, I did not achieve full scientific truth. There are so many internal variables which affect our ability to observe, some of which are entirely subconscious. If we are constantly being affected by these variables, our senses can’t be trusted to consistently lead us to scientific truth.
The reason why we can never trust our senses is because of all these variables. Not only could we already be subject to a physical hindrance or condition that impairs our ability to observe, but we are constantly under the influence of our inner mental biases. At any moment in time, any number of these variables could be impairing our ability to observe. If there is always this possibility, then we can never truly trust our senses. For example, using language as a comparison, we can never truly trust what someone is saying to be true. There is always a possibility that they are lying. Therefore, we can never truly trust what someone is saying to be true – there is always the possibility of lying. Our senses don’t “lie”, but they are susceptible to any number of variables which affect our ability to observe the world around us. This is why we can never trust our senses to lead us to scientific truth; our senses are directly connected to our ability to observe and without the ability to observe we can never achieve scientific truth.
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