The Power of Perception

It is fall here and I am stoked! I forgot how much I love seasons; changes; the fresh autumn breeze and the way it makes my nose cold and red, my cheeks tingly and my eyes runny. That wasn't sarcasm! I love it. And I love Beijing and all it's hilariousness. It is exactly this hilariousness and my current obsession with philosophy that have had me thinking a lot lately about perception: the power of it and the way we all see the world and individual moments with different eyes.

Is life simply just a hallucination? A mirage? A trip? An experiment? I hope so.

Either way, I am beginning to understand that if nothing else, it is all certainly an illusion.

Perception theorists and philosophers may not agree on a lot; but many of them do agree that the way one experiences each moment is based on the individual who is experiencing it - and pretty much nothing else. The philosophy of perception is more so the philosophical reflection of experience. The way we, as human beings, with our very limited abilities to perceive our external stimulus experience the world around us.

Philosophy in my mind is essentially a belief. It may or may not be melded with one's religion, and it certainly contains value judgments. Thus, how we perceive our environment can also be considered as what we believe to be happening at that point. Hallucinations or illusions or even an event considered to be a miracle are all simply judgments placed on the sensory stimuli. I am a bit of a science geek so I'll simply put it like this: we have five senses, all of which are quite pathetic compared to most other animals.. For example, we only see 'visible light'; hear only a fragment of sounds waves; can hardly fathom hunting with electronic pulses like sharks or with sonar echos like bats; or communicating with polarized and ultra violet light like honey bees and pacific salmon. Miracles, hallucination, and every single other experience are simply perceived experiences whereby the observer places a judgment on what is being observed - how or why their previously mentioned senses receive a stimuli and then what rules and beliefs they decide to place on that stimuli. Each experience is completely subjective to the one experiencing it. What is 'real' to the experiencer at that moment may or may not actually be real at all; but what matters is that it is real to them. So if I've never seen a boy fly, and my mum tells me they can't, i might think it is a bit strange to see one fly. In turn, that boy might believe with no shred of a doubt he can fly, and therefore might think the experience is as common place as walking along the road.

Sorry if I am boring you. Check out: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-problem/ if I have piqued your interest in this topic. For now I will wander down a reflectionary path of the things I perceive in my world around me and how that is controlled to some extent by the media sources. The way I see things, I surmise, are therefore different than how you out there are experiencing this point in time, since your senses, values, and prior experiences are different than mine and furthermore, the information you are receiving by each sense is also different. For example, I might study perception theory for a few months on my own and begin to explore it through other avenues such as conversations with friends and strangers; but ultimately it is my perception that the best description of the power of perception is (not surprisingly, Aristotelian) Indirect Realism explaining that we do not (and cannot) perceive the external world as it really is; instead we know only our ideas and interpretations of the way the world is. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indirect_realism

More than anything lately, the perception of the world around us as told through the media (or, rather, their perceptions of their own reality) has been a major source of entertainment for me and my little brain.

I don't know how it was perceived out there in the big world, but I do know we live in a nice happy bubble of Communism here (no one's complaining, I'll tell you that!) and China's 60th birthday on October 1st was considered by everyone here a "great success". One of the greatest examples of the power of perception is a game I like to play when I compare a story from BBC, CNN and The China Daily, but for now let's just stick to the news/entertainment received on this side of the world.

http://www.china.org.cn/features/60years/2009-10/02/content_18645967.htm

http://www.china.org.cn/features/60years/node_7077150.htm

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-09/28/content_8743905.htm

October 1st, National Day Holiday, allowed for a week off school and work, and in typical Chinese logic, everything was closed during this time. Along with other amazing Chinese logic (you know you've live in China too long when you don't react to any of this) my top five "WTF?!" moments included:

1. Closing the entire city of Beijing AND it's public transportation. http://www.thebeijinger.com/blog/2009/09/28/Holiday-Road-Closure-Other-Shutdown-News

2. Closing the International Airport for a day - on purpose!? (Imagine New york closing JFK just for the heck of it???!)

http://www.thebeijinger.com/blog/2009/09/21/There-s-NO-escape-Airport-Closes-for-October-1

3. Bizzzilions of people (as per the photo above) then went out and about after they finally opened the city to the masses again. On Friday and Saturday, the largest public square in the world (TainAnMen) saw more than 1.5 million tourists daily, nearing its capacity limit. I was there! 

4. They even closed entire provinces and regions! http://www.thebeijinger.com/blog/2009/09/22/Tibet-Closed-for-Oct-1-and-other-news

5. We further enjoyed some of the greatest rules I've yet to come across, which included but were not limited to: not being allowed to fly kites; not being allowed to take your bird out for a walk (and they managed to round up every single bird, um yeah I mean the wild ones, in the city); and not being allowed to LOOK OUT YOUR WINDOW.

Sadly I only managed to break one of these - I saw the fighter planes training for the event - IN YOUR FACE CPC!!

http://www.thebeijinger.com/blog/2009/09/21/Celebrate-Now-Jet-Fighters-Over-Beijing

Another moment that had me thinking of the Perception Principle was when I went to see my first live tennis at the China Open. I was never really sure what separated me from pro athletes until I saw Venus Williams up close. She is a monster! And they respond to serves going 200km/hr as if it is nothing. If a tennis ball came at most humans at 200km/hr, I'd be shocked if more than 2% of them would even have time to react at all.

Lastly, as per this wonderful topic of the power of perception, I spent a few minutes entertaining myself with myself recently (not what you think!) as I looked back on my blog from two years ago - my first trip to Beijing was over the 2007 National Day. Firstly I am completely embarrassed by how bad my Chinese was (I couldn't even write pinyin!) but also just how ignorant I was. I guess that is what it is all about though. My perception of this place has change a lot. But I guess my perception of everything has since then, really.

A Ted Talk on Perception