As humans, we mainly rely on our senses when we communicate with the environment. In the interactions, there is, however, concerns that need to be addressed. When should these senses be trusted to give us the truth? Can we rely and trust on these senses to provide us with the truth? As we use the senses, it is essential to consider the fact to the extent that we should rely on them to give us the truth. Human senses are the medium through which the body can perceive and external stimuli. They include the senses to smell, hearing, sight, taste, and touch. They are used to test four main ways of knowing including emotion, perception, logic, and language. Our beliefs and ideas are formed when we can rate in information and use the mind to organize it to be identified and understood. It is important to recognize that our emotions are one way of knowing that in most cases becomes deceptive when we try to find the truth. It is our opinions that we perceive and not the reality. An emotion hence is one way of knowing that should not be used to find the truth.
In a biology class, we were told to analyze the layer of a bulb onion and what could make it have the shape. In the experiment, we were expected to use our senses in the analysis of the onion layer. I looked at the onion and thought that it was oval and it always had some purple color. Through my nose, I smelled and noted that it had some strong and irritating smell. In the discussion of the result, I gave these two reasons in the description of the structure and nature of the onion. Many of my classmates thought that my second point on the nature of the onion that I gave after smelling was far from the truth which I provided in the first case when I stated that the onion had an oval shape.
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"Can We Trust Our Senses To Give Us The Truth?".
In the instance, I learned that it is through the visual perception that I was presented with a higher dimension of understanding the nature and the appearance of the onion. My classmates who performed the same experiment may have had a different perception of nature and the appearance of the same onion. The counterargument, in this case, is that within most natural sciences, the structure that the subject is given recognizes the fact that an individual’s senses may distort the final result that may be right in the experiments. In most of the cases, there is the use of a reading error to compensate in the areas where our senses may be absent. The sense if vision may have been absent when I gave an observation on the smell, and the reading error could be applied in this case to compensate for the absence. When the uncertainty values and reading errors are not appropriately included, the experiment could be considered less accurate. One of the concepts that could be applied in the case is that the senses of an individual are designed for survival purposes instead of being developed to perceive the truth of the matter. This would be evident when the senses of humans are compared to those of the other living creatures.
There are cases where reason is applied alongside the senses to give the truth and meaning of an event or object. An onion, for example, can be described to be oval and the smell when raw may be irritating to others. By simple definition of the onion from the senses, an onion is an onion despite the description that it may be given by individuals. The meaning of its nature can be derived from reason. The senses cannot give us an idea and it is the reason that gives the truth. The senses only collect direct and raw data as they appear. They cannot hence be used for as a source of truth as they do not give the uncovered information and meaning.
The interpretation of the data that I got from the onion would have been inaccurate from maybe the emotion that I was having at the time of the experiment. To me, the smell could be irritating, but to another classmate, it would be pleasing. It can be argued that the emotion of a person impacts the senses only when we understand how it operates in our lives. The emotion of an individual gives the information on them, and the best way through which it can be managed is through the knowledge and acceptance of the way they live. If we become aware of the reactions that we have to emotions, we become aware of ourselves.
The problems that are experienced we used our senses in most cases can be solved through their verifiability. Summarizing the senses is the inner being of the soul of an individual, and they need to be used first. An argument can also be made that there are situations that we can still rely on our senses to give us the truth. They are mainly used in cases where there is no evidence. Our senses are the first things that we rely on to give us the truth when there is no evidence we are presented with. They control the way we think and act. It is through the senses that the way individuals view things around the world changes. They affect the perception that defines vision, hearing, touch, and smell. The senses can tell an individual about what is right and what is wrong. In case an individual decides to ignore our senses, and what they might be telling us, we may end up being hurt. In the example above, when I would not have trusted the sense of smell of what I got from the onion, I could have decided to take more time smelling the gas which may have affected me in some way.
When an individual deceived to concentrate, they can observe their mind and their thoughts. It is important in these cases to determine whether the mind observes itself or whether there is something beyond the mind. The reality that exists outside the minds of an individual can be seen as the best definition of truth. The use of senses in these cases is a link between the mind and the reality of a situation. Despite the fact that we can trust our senses in some cases, an equally strong argument is that these senses can never be trusted for truth. Relatively, the essence of truth in a case comes from pure reason which is logical and deductive. With the analysis, I would agree that an individual needs both reason and sense perception to enable full comprehension of the true nature of their environment. I also believe that the perception of our senses is important when finding the truth although we should be aware of the limitations and the capabilities of our senses. However, there are some situations in which the interpretation of the information from the senses is inaccurate. Despite us not being able to trust our senses to give us the truth, the perception of the senses is an important medium through which an individual can conceive the real nature of things in our environments.
