Is perception reality?

[Giff]

In the case of visual perception, some people can actually see the percept shift in their mind's eye. Others, who are not picture thinkers, may not necessarily perceive the 'shape-shifting' as their world changes. The 'esemplastic' nature has been shown by experiment: an ambiguous image has multiple interpretations on the perceptual level. The question, "Is the glass half empty or half full?" serves to demonstrate the way an object can be perceived in different ways.

Just as one object can give rise to multiple percepts, so an object may fail to give rise to any percept at all: if the percept has no grounding in a person's experience, the person may literally not perceive it.

The processes of perception routinely alter what humans see. When people view something with a preconceived idea about it, they tend to take those preconceived ideas and see them whether or not they are there. This problem stems from the fact that humans are unable to understand new information, without the inherent bias of their previous knowledge. A person’s knowledge creates his or her reality as much as the truth, because the human mind can only contemplate that to which it has been exposed. When objects are viewed without understanding, the mind will try to reach for something that it already recognizes, in order to process what it is viewing. That which most closely relates to the unfamiliar from our past experiences, makes up what we see when we look at things that we don’t comprehend.

This confusing ambiguity of perception is exploited in human technologies such as camouflage, and also in biological mimicry, for example by Peacock butterflies, whose wings bear eye markings that birds respond to as though they were the eyes of a dangerous predator. Perceptual ambiguity is not restricted to vision. For example, recent touch perception research Robles-De-La-Torre & Hayward 2001 found that kinesthesia based haptic perception strongly relies on the forces experienced during touch

Cognitive theories of perception assume there is a poverty of stimulus. This (with reference to perception) is the claim that sensation are, by themselves, unable to provide a unique description of the world. Sensations require 'enriching', which is the role of the mental model. A different type of theory is the perceptual ecology approach of James J. Gibson. Gibson rejected the assumption of a poverty of stimulus by rejecting the notion that perception is based in sensations. Instead, he investigated what information is actually presented to the perceptual systems. He and the psychologists who work within this paradigm detailed how the world could be specified to a mobile, exploring organism via the lawful projection of information about the world into energy arrays. Specification is a 1:1 mapping of some aspect of the world into a perceptual array; given such a mapping, no enrichment is required and perception is direct perception.

The brain, with which one perceives the world, is made up of neurons “buzzing” at 50 cycles a second, while the world as it exists in reality is made up of electro-magnetic radiation oscillating at 500 trillion cycles a second. This means that the human brain cannot nearly keep up with the ‘realness of reality.’ To compensate, the brain takes a preconceived idea about the object, then uses those preconceived ideas to see whether or not they are there. The problem with attaining an accurate perception of reality stems from the fact that humans are unable to understand new information, without the inherent bias of their previous knowledge. The extent of a person's knowledge creates his or her reality as much as the truth, because the human mind can only contemplate that to which it has been exposed. When objects are viewed without understanding, the mind will try to reach for something that it already recognizes, in order to process what it is viewing. That which most closely relates to the unfamiliar from a person's past experiences makes up what he or she sees when he or she looks at things that he or she does not comprehend.

-from Wikipedia.

What I personally think is that it's hard to say what is reality eactly. But it's easier to say what's not based on logic, evidence or lack of evidence. Gods are for an instant not a reality since there are no proof of their exictence. No visusal, physical or theoretical evidence.

So the answer to the question "is perception reality?" is no. I rather say knowledge shape you perception in a way to see what's real and most importenly whats not, since that's easier to tell. But perception cannot be reality, it can be only tempoarily and that shifts a long with what we learn. Knowledge is the key to understand what is real and not. Yesterday was Pluto a planet today is it a dwarfplanet but the later one is the reality today.