So how good is your perception? Am I a human? (Assignment 2)

This large Chapter covers many areas. So to prevent any potential readers from dozing off from my response, I will limit myself to three areas. They are: Perception, Free Will & Morality, and Limitations.


Perception:
This is the foundation of the chapter. For those who do not understand this section, I will explain it for your benefit.

We are introduced to the idea of the Red Glasses and how this affects Rationalist and Empiricist. For those who can not remember what they are (or are too lazy to get their book!) I have included definitions below. (Slightly paraphrased from the book)

Rationalist: "The basis for all human knowledge lies in the mind"
Empiricists: "All knowledge of the world proceeded from the senses"

The Red Glasses impair the sense of sight. When wearing them, everything seems Red. As such, the wearer (provided they do not realize they are wearing the glasses!) is misled. From this we can see that our senses can be deceived. We can only perceive the universe within our own constraints. That means that what we try to discern from our sense can be wrong and not to be trusted.

So what about Rationalists? Does that mean they too are right? The answer is no. A lot of our reason is based on our senses. We know that gravity will make objects fall, but that is because we have learnt this from our senses. We learn in life and this contributes to our reason. But learning requires the senses.

Reason also has its limits. Reason requires knowledge of the area beforehand. If I asked you if smoking was dangerous, you would tell me yes and how it causes cancer and other problems. Yet only 20 years ago, not only would you have told me it was not dangerous, but you would also have encouraged me to smoke! This is because now we have more information available about how dangerous smoking is.

Reason can also give us two viewpoints. The example given in the book is the creation of the world. Something can not come from nothing, but the Earth must have a starting point because it can not have always existed. So what really happened? Science tells us of theories such as the Big Bang, but what came before that? If we assume that there was a first point, how do we know if it is right? What proof is there?

(For those using this as an explanation to this section, the following is not in the book!)

So how much can we know and trust?

Well, we can split knowledge into two areas. There are Certainties and Possibilities.

Certainties are things that are always true. If you go to a shop wearing a hat and then buy another hat, you have two hats. Whether you wear Red Tinted Glasses you have two hats. If you do not hold them, you still have two hats. If you are blind, you can feel the two hats. They could be big, small, round, flat, they are still two hats.

Possibilities are things we feel are true, but can not be concretely proved beyond doubt in any way. This could be because of limitation of the senses. A hat may not be red to a colour blind person. Or, it could be because we do not know enough information. A hat will fall when dropped, but it may not be due to gravity. It could be something bigger that we haven't discovered. Remember that before Newton, people though it was magic!

Of course, Occam's Razor is a useful tool for removing possibilities that are too complex or not worth pondering. But again, this is limited by what knowledge we know. If we use Occam's Razor but did not know any Physics, one would really believe objects fall because of magic!


Free Will & Morality:
Alberto discusses how humans have a free will and how we obey a moral law dictating how we behave in all situations. Crime is wrong. Charity is right. By following these laws we have our free will to do what we want.

However, I disagree. We are brought up in different societies, and within those societies we have different values. In Western Cultures today, killing the elderly to make more room for the young is wrong. But in the Northern European Countries in the 10th Century, this was a standard practise, and the elderly would judge fate upon themselves this way.

In Roman Catholic Countries, abortion is viewed as sinful. But in other parts of the world, it is viewed as a fundamental right for women.

Furthermore, if people followed these laws to gain a free will, why is there so much strife in the world? Would we have senseless violence, murder, genocide and such? No, because the moral law would stop us from doing so. However, these problems are real. It is not enough to say that these are caused by sub-humans or people who are animals. We have the free will to cause harm and hurt. We can choose to hurt, heal, harm, or hinder.

Alberto also mentions how animals have simpler cognitive functions and can not choose their actions freely and do not follow a moral law. But humans are evolved from primates that are very community based creatures. Females will care for their young, packs of monkeys will not fight if they realise that there is nothing to gain from it.

How do we know that other animals do not have free will and follow a moral law? Bears have to survive by eating, just like we do. Does killing a person for food make them cruel? In retrospect, does a human killing a cow for food make the human evil?

In reality, morality and cruelty in the general society is based upon interaction between humans. While we would find battery or intensive farming cruel, we do not find the consumption of those animals cruel. Yet when a shark kills and eats a person, there is a massive outcry of anger. Action must be taken! In the 1980s, hundred of sharks were hunted to "protect people". What did the sharks do wrong?

The general society decides what is "right" and "wrong". If you fall out of line with that society thinks is right, you are "different", an outcast. Campaigning against cruel farm practices is honourable. But how many people are really prepared to give up meat? If you walked out and starting preaching Christianity in the Vatican, you would be labelled someone who took faith too seriously, or the Pope. If you just walked into Mecca and did that, you would be stoned to death. Even if you were the Pope.

So why do we not hunt down fishermen that are depleting the seas of fish? Why do we not stalk and slaughter people who illegally log? Why? Because human morality is selective and is not instinctive like Alberto says it is. We are not born with knowledge of what is right and wrong. We learn from life, and grow up with our own sets of values that tend to be in line with that the general society believes.


Limitations:
Limitations are what separates all of us, yet makes us all similar.

Some of us can not see as well as the person next to us. That is why we have glasses. Some of us are not as tall as that person sitting to your left. Some of us do not think as fast. Some of us are less receptive to new ideas. Some of us hate reading long ToK blog posts! (And I sincerely apologize if you are one of those people!) These limitations to our abilities mean we are different.

Yet they make us the same.

We all have the same body features, and we all look (to a degree) alike and live the same. We all share 99.5% of the same genetic material, and we are all humans. (At least, I hope you are!) A cat will not suddenly grow 5 fingers, and a fish does not have legs.

We can all talk languages our race has invented. I could learn Russian or French tomorrow and be able to talk basically after a few days (not that I would be any good!). A dog can not learn German or Polish, even if it wanted to.

So despite all these limitations that are placed upon us we are all, essentially, the same. Is that a good thing? Well, one of the letters that Sophie picks up says:

"If the human brain were simple enough to understand, we would still be so stupid that we wouldn't understand it."

So if we knew everything there was to know, had no limits, could use our sense or reason to understand everything, it stands to say we would not be a human. In all honesty, we would not be anything at all.

So what would you rather be? A human, or nothing?