The primary thing that separates human kind from other organisms is the human conscious and our ability to reason. But what exactly does human consciousness entail? Well according to Descartes' "2nd Meditation," human beings think, reason, and will but they also use their senses and imagination to make sense of it all. As well as the latter being just as important as the former. We cannot trust solely our imagination and we also cannot solely trust our senses just because of the fact that we can be deceived. Interestingly enough, Descartes states that even though we can be deceived or that our imagination can lead us down a fruitless path, the mere fact that it is occurring proves that we exist. He uses a wax statue as an example to prove his point. The fact that the wax statue can be altered or changed does not change the fact that it is a wax statue or at least we perceive it to be. Just because we perceive something does not mean that it is real, but our perception of it is real.
This idea is also shown by the movie Inception. In this movie there people who enter people's subconscious in order to locate and learn people's deepest secrets. In order to do this all of the people involved must be put to sleep in order for the team to enter the target's dreams. Now while in this dream state the person has no idea that he is dreaming and that there are people there to steal from him. While the person is not physically going on high speed chases or being shot at, their experience of it is real. They one hundred percent believe everything that is happening to them is actually occurring. And when the target awakes they are none the wiser of it occurring. Except the ones who entered the targets mind know everything that happened and they are different for it. We can see in the movie how the characters developed throughout the movie as a result of entering people's dreams. While they did not physically do anything in the real world, they perceived that they did which in many cases is just as real.
People's perceptions of things are fickle and it changes from person to person. Two people can undergo the same event but have two entirely different perceptions of what actually happened. Their perceptions have no affect on what actually happened but what the person sees and believes is is as true as the actual event that happens. This all goes into our human experience and makes us who we are. It is not the events that change and alter us. It is our perception of these events and what we believe to be true that makes each individual person different from everyone else. We can perceive a failure to be just that, or we can perceive it to be a stepping stone to something greater. This is just one of the many examples of how perception and how we think can affect our lives.
I think your post raises the extremely important point that humans all perceive parts of reality differently. For example, I could look at a sun rise as a chance to start a new day and have new adventures, while my brother could look at it as the annoying thing that forces him to get out of bed. I think your post highlights how imagination can be both good and bad. Descartes believes imagination to be unreliable due to the ridiculous and false ideas that can stem from it. However, imagination is what leads to new discoveries. Without imagination, humans would never have been able to dream up some of the amazing inventions we have today, like modern medicine and sliced bread. However, I agree with Descartes that there is a line. There is a difference between what is real and what is not and imagination can blur that line. I think this is where the importance of human knowledge comes in. Knowledge can be used to differentiate between what is real and what isn't. Like you mentioned in your post, "how we think can affect our lives." I think human knowledge and the ability to reason allows us to use our imagination to improve reality.
ReplyDeleteYou're post made me think about Inception in a way I never have before. The idea of what they are trying to do in the movie by performing the inception is to implant an the seed of an organic thought that will develop on its own. I feel like your use of the Descartes' 2nd Meditation can bring great insight to this thought especially using his wax argument. In Inception they control the imagination in such a way that the dreamer may eventually figure out that he is dreaming. Likewise, the senses are altered in the dream state, so preforming an inception cannot appeal to the senses. Ultimately it seems that in preforming an inception they are actually altering the dreamers ability to reason in order for him to believe that the implanted thought is actually his own.
ReplyDeleteAnother movie I feel would most likely destroy my mind. However, I love the fact that you brought up the point about two people having the same experience, but all-in-all feeling it differently, if that makes sense. I guess the best example would be in school taking the same class, you could highly enjoy the class while I am suffering through, even though the professor is teaching us both the same stuff in the same way, we feel things differently. Your experience was more enjoyable while mine wasn't. Perception is a very funny thing indeed.
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