Assignment II: Mind Over Matter

I think that the Red Tinted Glasses experiment used by Alberto Knox in Chapter 25 shows Knox’s disagreement with empiricists and his support of the rationalist ideas. The glasses prove that it is possible to ‘limit the way you perceive reality’ by distorting the information collected by the senses, thus showing the flaws of the empiricists’ thinking. Although her senses have been fooled, Sophie still realizes that she sees ‘exactly the same as before, except that it’s all red.’ Sophie’s reasoning and experience is able to properly interpret the altered sensory image and understand that, although the image has changed, the thing itself has not. Her ability to use reasoning to find the truth supports the idea that the mind is more reliable than the senses.

I find myself agreeing with Kant’s view; that sensing and reason cannot exist without one another and that they both play an important part in our understanding of our world. There is no point in neglecting your senses and only using your reasoning to understand the world since there would be no new sensory information or experiences to further develop your ability to reason. Similarly, there is no point in collecting masses of information through the senses without the proper analysis and interpretation of reasoning, as this mass of information would be useless. This point is illustrated in page 326, where the water (sensory information) is shaped by the pitcher (reasoning) to produce a complete understanding and interpretation. Without the pitcher, it would all be a big mess. Without the water, there is no point of the pitcher existing.

However, I feel that the mind and its ability to reason is more important than sensory information. It is our individual and unique minds that ultimately change our sensory information into something understandable. We are able to use our reasoning to find the truth even though our sensory information is altered. Although our reasoning can be influenced by factors such as morals, bias and emotions, it is the best and only way we can understand our world in spite of the red tinted glasses that inhibit our senses.