TOK Essay
When should we trust our senses to give us the truth?
 Introduction
Senses are important sources enabling us to know and be aware of different
areas of knowledge about the world. In fact we perceive the outer world through our
five senses –sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. Furthermore, our five senses are
connected to the mind in a direct way causing the body to respond to the message
which the mind interprets. That means if we used one of our senses, a nerve is
responsible to deliver a code to be analyzed in the brain , and give the organ a sign to
react in a short time, for example “ if you touch a hot object”.
Actually, three concepts and theories were introduced to look at the relationship
between the perception and reality. Firstly, common-sense realism or direct realism
which suggests that what we perceive from the world has to be taken at face value. That
means if we were to see the sky in the morning, the sky apparently looks blue, although
the sky could be sometimes orange as we perceive it. In fact the sky is colorless, that
indicates that sometimes, we have got to be fooled by our senses. This theory is a
simple method which lacks certainty and accuracy in giving us an ultimate truth.
The second theory is called representative realism which suggests that the world is very
different from the way we perceive it, because we don’t perceive the world directly.
When you burn sodium with oxygen, a yellow color in evolved and that because of the
electron energy level since electrons drooped from higher energy level to a lower
energy level and consequently the matter emits yellow light. In fact as electrons keep
drooping, we will have plenty of colors emission which some of them are invisible, e.g.
“hydrogen spectrum”. That clarifies that the world is an independent reality.
Lastly, the last theory is called phenomenalism which claims facts about the matters
depend on a subjective experience. That means that we can know about the world of
physical object through our sensory experience and it is wrong to think that these
matters are independent of our experience. If you were to see a red apple on a table,
the color you perceive it is red. Whereas, if you left the apple, you are going to
experience a new color beneath it, and that because, we have a permanent possibility of
sensation. In my point of view this theory is limited, because we aren’t certain about the
reality and our reality is based upon our experience of object.
I am going to examine how senses play a key role in selective areas of
knowledge which are science, history and religion. Moreover, senses have their
limitation, therefore are they worthy trust and if so when? As a common sense, human
beings are fallible and that is true to some extent. Therefore it is very difficult to define
the truth in a way since there is no certain knowledge that we don’t have doubt about.
In fact, we tend to look for interpretation for the truth in different area but we have
never reached an ultimate truth.
Perception plays a vital role in which helps humans to develop science in many
areas e.g. (physics, chemistry…). Moreover, Perception was the initial step in which
science started to wide up. In fact, Newton makes his first rule on gravity, because he
was observing an apple once it fell down on the ground in which he uses one of his
senses –sight-. However, senses still have its limitations which sometimes lead us to
unjustified reality. We still wonder if science really helps us to know the reality of the
world or it is just the way we perceive things. Yet, in chemistry, we still use senses to
help us to discovering more about matter like touch, smell and sound. Let’s take an
example and see how accurate our senses could be in giving us the truth.
Matter if we were to define it is something that occupies a space in the vacuum
around us. That is obvious since we can see it and touch it. Let’s take a simple example
in which we use our senses to experience it. If we looked at a metallic plate exposed to a
light, if we get close to it we can say that it has grey colors, whereas we went a bit
further we are going to experience another color which could be a bright one, and if we
look at it from different angle we are to see different colors each time. In addition, if we
were to touch it, we are going to feel a hard flat object, but it depends on how much
force you apply on the plate and therefore you will get different level of hardness.
Moreover, if we hit the plate many times with different forces applied, we are going to
get different sounds. In fact, these are some basic descriptions that we all agree that
could happen. Now, when we use the microscopic technology to look how the plate
looks like, we are going to get a completely different desorption. In fact, if we looked by
microscope, we see a complex shape which contradict the fact that it is flat. So which
descriptions are we supposed to trust?
Actually, physics is facts that are build on models in which we are not even sure
about. As long as these models correspond to make coherent facts, then they are
counted to be true. However, that doesn’t mean that we are sure about the accuracy of
these models. We use senses quite a lot to help us to understand physics for example,
measuring. Let’s take an example about the state of matter, if we have a piece of ice on
a fire to change its state to liquid. Actually, if we touch the water, we are either going to
feel that it is cold or hot. However, have we asked ourselves how we could define
coldness and hotness? Technically speaking, our touch sense is not capable to give us an
accurate measure of the water in terms of hotness and coldness unless we used a
thermometer. That indicates that the language itself failed to come up with a certain
description in order to be precise bout the state of matter.
History is basically a memorized actions happened in the past have been seen
and recorded, then told all over the years. However, we are still faced by the question
what make us sure that what happened in the past were true. Actually, we have to
remember that human beings are fallible and that is a fact. A simple case study is the
history of religion or religion itself since it is recorded events passed all over the
centuries. What is more, religion is a big influential power on human thinking, For
example, Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Moreover, People in the past were limited in
their languages to express what they want to tell. Further more if history was told to
people latterly, then we are not sure if that the information we received is complete
actions. What makes us sure that 5.2 to 5.8 million Jews have been killed in the
Holocaust in Europe? In fact, if you look it up you are going to find different records and
number. Which record should we believe? In fact the best way to solve this problem is
to ensure that the sources that you get your records from are trustable. That means that
the best source to be trusted is the one which have many testimonies in different
places.
To sum up with this essay, it is not easy to answer such a question. In my point of
view, what our senses tend to give us most of time not the truth, however it gives us the
truth about certain sense-data which depends on the way we perceive the world. I have
taken examples from some areas of knowledge and I concluded that our sense are
limited to give us the ultimate truth and it can be wrong most of the time.