Is perception reality?

[Edwardo Piet]

Well your perception is used to perceive reality. So I think that suggests that it is separate whether it happens to correspond or not. I think the only sense in which it itself really IS reality is the fact that one's perception itself is PART of reality. Out perception exists, hence it is real, hence to that extent it is reality.

Outside of that it may or may not correspond with reality, so you can perceive what isn't 'really' there so it's not reality in that sense.

EvF

[WWLD]

I think your perception is a reality of sorts. Not physical reality, or reality necessarily based on evidence, but 'real' in the sense that you believe it. So yeah - a personal perception.

Your Dad's point is good. It's what drives people away from community. People's perceptions get rooted to the extent that people targeted aren't free to be themselves. The reality, if unchecked, leads to people splitting up. Hmm.

Perceptions can be wrong, and have to be checked. I think it's overly cynical to state perception = reality, without clarification.

Seems to me that christians, or someone of any religion I suppose, tend to agree with my dads argument. My mother agrees, and I even asked around at school today...there's a lot of religious people in my school considering Where I live

What do you mean when you say "The reality, if unchecked, leads to people splitting up."?

[fr0d0]

No I disagree with your dad. I think his view is cynical.

I was talking about his Paris Hilton statement. Transposed onto a community, 'perceptions' like that become bigotry, which leads to people becoming alienated. You need rules/ whatever to keep prejudice in check.

[chatpilot]

Perception is subject to reality but does not interpret reality accurately in many instances.As I stated before there are many outside factors that influence our perception of reality.

[g-mark]

In terms of psychology, perception is a single unified awareness derived from sensory processes while a stimulus is present. Therefore, in terms of psychology, perception is reality, as we perceive our reality through physical stimuli.

1. Personal perceptions related to thoughts and concepts, and sometimes unseen reality, differ greatly from person to person.

Some people say that reality is 'relative' to individual perceptions. However, the rain is still water(H2O), even if you perceive it differently to someone else.

2. Thoughts about certain subject matters maybe 'relative' however. This is an ongoing debate that is very complex and hard to define.

E.g A thought or opinion concerning somebody elses morals or behaviour, when that behaviour is legal, is extremely hard to define and judge. As we haven't any guide lines, apart from our own judgement, it is merely thought against thought.

[Dotard]

I am color blind too giff and yes we percieve colors differently than everyone else.For instance I have trouble seeing different shades of red,green,and pink.I see bright red as orange and bright green as yellow so as far as colors go giff we do percieve things differently.

Pardon me. Usual lurker here, but I must ask.

If you are colorblind, as I am also, how do you know you see bright red as orange or bright green as yellow? What do you see orange as? How are you distinguishing that orange color that you call bright red? How do you know it's bright red and not orange?

I'm guessing others have told you this as I have had folks tell me, for instance when I point out what appears to be a pink car, that what I am calling pink is not pink but a light colored red or some other funny named color I have no idea what it is, like fusia or some other such goofy named color.
But that's not consistant. I'll say "That's pink!" They say no it's light red. Next one I see I'll say "That's light red!" They say no that's a dark orange.

Eyeball doctor told me I see many many different shades and since childhood I've learned these different shades names, like orange and red being different shades of the same "color".

Anyway, it's late, (actually early morning) I can't sleep so here I am jabbering about my colorblindness. So to stay on-topic, no, perceptions are just that, perceptions. One's perceptions about the world around them does not reality make.


My perceptions about the round circles of dead grass in my lawn are that UFO's landed there and kilt the grass. Reality is it was just grubs.

[g-mark]

If you perceive a rock, and I perceive a rock, what is it? A cream cake.

[Dotard]

The reality of it beeing a rock was there before we came along to perceive it.

Both of us may perceive something as just a rock, but in reality it may be a fossil of some sorts. Or it may be indeed a creamcake made to appear as a rock.

[Sam]

This thread seems to be working toward the whole Matrix idea ...

"If we all percieve our world, are we really living in an intricate computer ..." etc...

I suppose there will always be a philosophical disagreement between actual reality (that being all the things that are as they seem defined by their properties) and people perceived reality.

I suppose it is nearly impossiblt to decide between them on an individual basis.

Sam

[g-mark]

reality -
re⋅al⋅i⋅ty
   /riˈælɪti/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [ree-al-i-tee]
–noun, plural -ties
1. the state or quality of being real.
2. resemblance to what is real.
3. a real thing or fact.
4. real things, facts, or events taken as a whole; state of affairs: the reality of the business world; vacationing to escape reality.
5. Philosophy.
a. something that exists independently of ideas concerning it.
b. something that exists independently of all other things and from which all other things derive.
6. something that is real.
7. something that constitutes a real or actual thing, as distinguished from something that is merely apparent.
—Idiom
8. in reality, in fact or truth; actually: brave in appearance, but in reality a coward.
Origin:
1540–50; < ML reālitās. See real 1 , -ity

Does reality only exist within our minds?