How does our perception affect what we know, what we do and who we are?

Answer 1

Great question -- tough to answer.

Someone I respect described perception as a filter that is used by our minds (consciously or unsconciously) with everything and everyone...and no matter how hard we try, just like a regular A/C filter, that gets clogged up by dirt, old hair, dead bugs, etc...the 'perception filter' gets clogged up and we sometimes have to change it (or at least renew it).

When does that happen? Well, your question raises some of the primary reasons:

What We Know -- A lot of our knowledged is perceived to be correct. Why? We haven't been challenged on it in a way that forces change in our thought. Serious life events (Deaths, Divorces, Serious mental or bodily illness, Job loss, etc..) are noted for creating enormous stresses on the individual and in consequence, we may begin to question some of the things 'we know'.

What We Do -- Crossing the street everyday in the US begins by looking left, then right...and doing that saves us from getting run over. Until, that is, we visit a country like Great Britain, and suddenly find that it no longers works for us like it used to after we get run over a few times. If how we perceive something changes abruptly, our choices to deal with this change in perception usually change as well...and as a result, what we choose to do may be different.

Who We Are -- Look in the mirror. What you see, hear, smell, taste, and feel are real -- right? Now imagine you've gone blind, or lost your hearing...or maybe you lose a limb. Abruptly, one of the things we used to define or identify our environment is gone...and with it, the perception of who WE are may also be affected.

Don't know if that answers everything you asked, but I enjoyed the exercise.

Answer 2

An interesting flick you might want to check out is "What The Bleep Do We Know, Anyway?" It discusses perception and conditioning, only in a big-budget, entertaining way. One of the main conclusions it works toward is basically that an individual is a sum of their choices and conditions, which ultimately affects one's perception, rather than the other way around. Fascinating stuff, really.

Answer 3

Perception affects the way you view things. From growing up, you have already taken-in prior biases/knowledge that alter perception. From that prior bias/knowledge, you judge things differently. For example; if you've grown up with a lot of relatives that smoke(not bashing on smokers or anything), then you might think it's totally alright to smoke.

Answer 4

When you learn something, or see something it is filtered through your own sets of principles, prior knowledge, personal prejudices, mood and several other variables (I'm sure). So, when you repeat the fact, or tell someone of the event, you give it a personal "spin" as it were. Thus person A sees, say, Bill Clinton as a good man caught up in a plot, person B sees Bill Clinton as a guilty of perjury, witness tampering, and slander. Both sides of the argument become real to each person, so that ultimately neither person is right insofar as their "filters" change the basis of the question. Person A sees "good man", person B sees "guilty" Hence the stupidity of an un-biased Senate. Just an example.....

Answer 5

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Answer 6

We are often dictated to by unconscious desires and traumatic life events. There are events and emotions buried deep down that affect us. People are also affected by stress and emotion. Reality isn't 100 percent objective, no matter what any materialist philosopher tells you. So yes, it affects our interpretation of reality.

Also, people do affect how you feel and what decisions you make. We may have free will but there are a lot of factors in any decision.

Answer 7

How we behavior and do depends on our genes and environment. We learn thru operant conditioning. We discriminate and is very influenced by reinforcers, especially social reinforcers (approval) and generalized conditioned reinforcers (money). The things we do we have learned from operant conditioning (the custom of celebrating Christmas).

We know because we can discriminate. We discriminate that Christmas is on the 25th, not the 23rd. Since we can discriminate that Christmas is on the 25th, we will open presents on the 25th not the 23rd, if you practice this custom, you discriminate that you celebrate Christmas.

Answer 8

It TOTALLY effects all those things. You can take ten different people and place them in the exact same situation, same circumstances, etc. and yet how their individual minds perceive things will dramatically lead them in different directions, making varied choices and decisions.