Is seeing believing?

By Anonymous -
We've all heard the expression "You have to see it to believe it!" When people talk about a particularly shocking or unbelievable experience, they confirm its validity by stating that they "saw it with their own eyes!" We take that to be an ultimate truth.

But is it? Maybe vision is not the absolute end all, be all for truth. Maybe, as Diana Eck puts it, seeing is really just another form of touch. This extends into our lives today; when someone has an object that we are interested in, we ask "Can I see?" and proceed to hold out our hands. I can remember being young and being told that we see with our eyes, not with our hands (as a means of not grabbing and taking things from others). But is that true? And if seeing is another form of communion and communication, is touch another form of seeing?

Professor Nelson's talk made me wonder how much we can actually trust our eyes. Our language puts a great emphasis on sight- think of words like insight, which is essentially a deeper understanding of something or a way to find the truth. But Professor Nelson flipped this idea on its head, explaining that we often can't rely on vision alone to convey the truth. It has a way of tricking us. Take optical illusions as an example- even if they're well known, they still have a way of confusing our eyes and our mind.

Is the picture above moving? Is the picture below an old woman or a young one?


Although seeing might be a form of touch, like Eck would argue, at this point it is easier to say that seeing may not always be valid on its own and can be used in conjunction with touch and the other senses in order to form a truer understanding of our world. In order to survive, which is the evolutionary purpose behind the senses, we need to rely on each of them in turn and together to move about and thrive in our surroundings. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Amidst the Pandemic

By -
Image
I think having the opportunity to take Smells and Bells and then experiencing a worldwide pandemic came with good timing. Oftentimes, we’re so rushed to get from one one place to another that we miss out on what happens around us. We’re so accustomed to the lifestyle of being busy that it has become the norm for many of us. However, the pandemic has forced us to slow down. We’re now appreciating everything that we had previously taken for granted and noticing things in our surroundings that we have never noticed before.  Take this quarantining/social distancing as an opportunity to be more aware of what you experience through the senses. I don’t think my senses have necessarily heightened over the past 5 weeks, but I am actively making the choice to pay more attention to what I see, hear, touch, taste, and smell. I like going on nature/mindfulness walks and basking in the sunshine out in my backyard. This morning, I could hear a faint noise from the wind, hear the birds chirpin...
Read more

Food in the Afterlife

By -
Image
In Religion in the Kitchen: Cooking, Talking, and the Making of Black Atlantic Traditions , Perez talks of Ashabi and her grandchildren providing food offerings to their ancestors. This immediately reminded me of the practice of food sacrifice in early China. I've taken Chinese language classes for about 7 years now and in one of the lessons, we learned about food as well as the history of food in Chinese culture. Ashabi and her grandchildren would give food offerings to their ancestors every day. This included nine beverages (coffee, liquor, and water mixed with sugar and molasses) and nine square pieces of coconut topped with red palm oil and guinea pepper. The offerings would also include whatever food was dropped on the ground. In their house, food dropping on the floor signified more than it would in common American households. It signified that the ancestors wanted that food and had willingly made it fall to the floor. They also used dishware that had been chipped which was...
Read more