Philosophy of Perception

I recently re-watched a TED.com talk by ethnobotanist, Wade Davis ( LINK ). The talk is regarding endangered cultures and might not directly address perception, but Davis gives us a glimpse into how other cultures have a different way of being as a result of their, often, unique way perceiving. Starting at 9 minutes 45 seconds is where I really pay attention to how perception has impacted these endangered cultures.

Fred Dretske has formulated a representational (or indirect realist ) account of perception that includes the following two features: Fred Dretske (1) Representational Vehicles/Contents Dretske first distinguishes between representational vehicle  and representational contents  as follows: "There are representational vehicles —the objects, events, or conditions that represent—and representational contents —the conditions or situations the vehicle represents as being so" (Dretske 68). (2) Qualia Secondly, Dretske appeals to qualia: "qualia are properties that physical objects, the ones we experience, normally have. They are not properties that experiences have" (Dretske 69). Michael Huemer In contrast to Dretske, Michael Huemer formulates and defends a version of direct realism in his book Skepticism and the Veil of Perception . Huemer gives the following rough characterization of direct realism: “Direct realism holds that in perception, we are ...

When talking about perceptions we are discussing the ability to be aware of something with our senses. Of the five senses, I would like to concentrate on just one: sight. In our eyes there are rods and cones. The rods are used for seeing in low light & used to detect motion; while the cones are used with brighter light and & used to detect color. Within the human eye there are 3 types of color receptive cones. There are cones for green, red, and blue. And it is a combination of those different color receptors that make up all the different colors we can see.              The YouTube channel Vsauce (which you can get to by clicking here ) has a very interesting video about color and how we can be tricked by computer monitors, television sets, etc. into thinking we are seeing the color yellow when we’re actually not . I’ve included the abridged version of that video below (and I encourage you to watch the whole video “ This Is Not Yellow ”):...

Each of your eyes has a blind spot on the retina. This blind spot is where the optic nerve connects to the retina. Watch this video to find your blind spot. The reason you cover one of your eyes is to prevent that eye from compensating for the blind spot in the other eye. Without that compensation, your mind then fills in the blind spot with surrounding visual stimulus. In other words, if you used a white 3 x 5 card then you noticed that the dot disappeared into the white of the 3 x 5 card. Video by Dayton Koons Voice by Emme Packer

Below is a video about the Ames room. This is an optical illusion developed by psychologist Adelbert Ames, Jr. Please watch. Why does it appear that the people in the room change size rather than the room alter its appearance?