Upon defining the word “perceiving”, I had to look into similar word such as “deceiving” or “conceiving”. From my studies in Latin, I know that the shared ending “-ceive” means “to take”: deceiving (you are taking something away), conceiving (you are taking something in). Thus perceiving must mean “taking something thoroughly”. We discussed in class the difference between perceptual and conceptual art. Perceptual art creates a realistic duplicate of the item, since it thoroughly takes in the shape, the size, the color of the object. However, conceptual art is symbolic; you are taking an object’s physical characteristics into your mind and then creating the work of art in accordance with your imagination.
Knowing is similar to the idea behind conceptual art. Knowledge is different for every person. There are two types of knowledge: objective and subjective. Over the course of human history, objective knowledge has become a set of rules (1+4=5). Subjective knowledge is left for interpretation. A moment in history is experienced by a plethora of humans from various countries. Each man returns to his home and retells the story. Years later, students in the Middle East will be learning about the United States as a global police; while students in the United States will be learning about the chaos in the Middle East. Both accounts of the situation are true, but they are incredibly different. By knowing certain truths, you can interpret facts. True knowledge requires an understanding from every single angle—there is no absolute knowledge.
Perceiving and knowing can often be interrelated. Once people looked onto the horizon and saw a flat surface; thereby thinking, the Earth is clearly flat. They saw with their very eyes the smooth ocean plane. When a sailor set out he knew he would eventually meet the edge of the Earth. But somehow, he managed to stay on the Earth. As the sailor “took into” his mind the fact that he never fell off the earth, his knowledge altered. His knowledge of an earth that did not eject sailors once they hit the edge changed his perception of the earth.
Most people know that the color of grass is green and the color of a strawberry is red. Scientists have universally agreed that grass is indeed green. But to my friend who is color blind (specifically to shades of green). The grass is clearly orange. He sees the grass with his very own eyes as orange. Who is right? Certainly I know grass is green. I have seen green grass my entire life. Knowing that grass is green; I cannot convince my friend who knows that grass is orange. In such a situation, knowing and perceiving differ.
Perceiving and knowing do not need to be coupled together. I know that electrons exist, but I have never seen one. I can only imagine from the combination of scientists’ opinions what one would probably look like, but I have yet to verify with touch or sight its existence. Planets other than Earth exist. Although, I have seen pictures of Venus, Saturn, and Jupiter; but, I have never thoroughly took in their existence. I know that there are galaxies other than the Milky Way, but no one has ever flown that far into space to perceive their existence. On the other hand, imagine that you are walking in a dark alley and you see a dark object in the corner of my eye. You can see that the object is the size of either a big greyhound or a trashcan. You do not know what the object is until you approach it. As you walk towards it, your fears are calmed because you realize after seeing the object, touching the object, and smelling the object (perhaps even tasting the object) that it is simply a trashcan. You do not need to know that there is garbage in the trashcan, because according to your sense of smell you perceive that indeed there is garbage. But without opening the trashcan, you will never really know if that odor was the result of rotten bananas or a specially planted stink bomb.
I have frequently mentioned the usage of senses in knowing and perceiving. I have seen that grass and I have smelled the trashcan. By using my senses, I know for a fact that grass is green and that trashcans sometimes smell like rotten bananas. Knowledge through oral tradition falls into the category of subjective knowledge. My aunt’s cousin’s next-door-neighbor’s son’s friend’s father told me the other day to take everything I hear with a grain of salt, because as the wonderful game of Telephone has proven countless times my sister’s name is “Sandy” not “Randy”. No way of knowing is truly superior. However, unaltered documentation such as videos and photographs often present the most truth, while stories tend to have bias. A completely unbiased account of anything is hard to find, so when analyzing facts you must take bias into consideration. As I mentioned earlier: true knowledge requires an understanding from every single angle—there is no absolute knowledge.
The grass is always more orange on the other side.
I have frequently mentioned the usage of senses in knowing and perceiving. I have seen that grass and I have smelled the trashcan. By using my senses, I know for a fact that grass is green and that trashcans sometimes smell like rotten bananas. Knowledge through oral tradition falls into the category of subjective knowledge. My aunt’s cousin’s next-door-neighbor’s son’s friend’s father told me the other day to take everything I hear with a grain of salt, because as the wonderful game of Telephone has proven countless times my sister’s name is “Sandy” not “Randy”. No way of knowing is truly superior. However, unaltered documentation such as videos and photographs often present the most truth, while stories tend to have bias. A completely unbiased account of anything is hard to find, so when analyzing facts you must take bias into consideration. As I mentioned earlier: true knowledge requires an understanding from every single angle—there is no absolute knowledge.
The grass is always more orange on the other side.
