Subjective Nature of Perception Be Regarded As Term Paper

Total Length: 1603 words ( 5 double-spaced pages)

Total Sources: 0

Page 1 of 5

subjective nature of perception be regarded as an advantage for artists but as an obstacle to be overcome for scientists?

Perception is the way we get the information about real objects that exist independently from our consciousness. Perception reflects state and qualities of objects and forms our understanding of their existence. Person can perceive information about environment in different ways: by tactile, acoustic, visual perception, still visual perception is the most essential. It's important to note that human gets 90% of information thanks to his eyesight. Visual perception is a result of visual activity of human's interaction with surrounding world. (It's important to note again here that we do not "see" objects, we perceive their electromagnetic radiation of visual spectrum).

That's why it's believed that visual perception is subjective, and the structure of perception is based on the laws of projectile reflection. Perception's role is essential in the functioning of mental activity as it prepares the basis to form ideas and notions. The function of perception in human's process of cognition takes the central technical place:

Perception forms initial information for abstracting unconnected relations and bonds with notions and objects.

As it creates the connections between material and immaterial concepts which are relations and objects, so the perception can function in two following forms: in empiric form and in rational form. Empiric form of perception is based on the sensual experiences: feelings, emotions, sensations; while rational form of perception is based on the laws of concluding and on the laws of formal logics.

It can be explained in the following way. If both artist and scientists observe any kind of event, for example natural phenomenon of tsunami, they'll perceive the information they have observed in a totally different form. Artist will look on tsunami as on natural disaster, as on natural element that evokes fear, horror and unexplainable feeling of admiration of all-mighty nature and force of water flows. Such event will evoke different feelings in his soul which he would like to reflect later either in painting or in literal piece.

But for the scientist the same natural phenomenon will have a different meaning. He will image the earthquake in the bottom of the ocean, the spread of oscillations in water caused by earthquake, finally he will probably make an analysis of the damage caused by tsunami and will calculate the costs. His mind will be busy by making analogies, concluding and reflecting different concepts and knowledge pieces.

So we can convince that even though both of them: either scientist or artist had observed the same thing, the experiences are quite different from this observation and the ways they have perceived it are different as well. If to refer to laden theory, it will explain that the perception of observations depends upon past experiences that an individual had before and it depends on individual's background. In other words human mind is able to perceive the events it can comprehend. Everything depends upon the preparation level of the individual, which is unique as every person is unique and may react only to the events it can cognize, realize and explain. This mechanism functions in the following way: after certain kind of action, human perception sends these experiences to brain, where it searches for analogies which were experienced in the past, then it compares them to current experience and then returns certain kind of reaction.

It explains why scientist perceives tsunami phenomenon differently from artist. Scientist's background and previous knowledge about related events are represented by knowledge of physics, geography and economics (abstractions). Artist on the hand has background about tsunami but its more about emotions, esthetical perception (images). So both of them perceive the same event according to previous background and knowledge.

There are lots of examples that can prove this concept. Before Copernicus and Galileo none believed that earth was rotating around the sun, as everyone was sure that it was visa versa.

Stuck Writing Your "Subjective Nature of Perception Be Regarded As" Term Paper?

Both groups of scientists could bring a lot of evidence to prove their theories: first group made conclusions from daily observations of the sky, others from mathematical calculations and astronomic observations. Both of them built their theories on the base of previous knowledge got.

Subjective perception can be effectively applied by artist as it forms the fundamental of art, when a person creates relying only on his feelings, emotions and visual perception of reality. Opposite to artists, scientists have to rely only on logics, ability to conclude and scientific methods in order to prove the validity of their hypothesis. The way of scientist may look like a direct algorithm. So the main aspect that puts artist aside from scientist is the influence of emotions.

In most cases emotions are disadvantageous for scientists as they may confuse them and the experiences got from emotional perception may often contradict to objective facts and logical conclusions. As a result, the work of scientist would look more as disorder and will be full of absurd. The only way subjective nature of perception which is more about personal emotions and experiences may be an advantageous for scientist is the motivation it can result for future work and future professional activity.

For artist subjectivism of perception will be advantageous as it allows him to demonstrate his creative uniqueness and ability of his works to demonstrate the main puzzle of esthetics-disinterested emotion in the yes of viewers. Art doesn't have to prove something, it has to generate positive emotions from viewing and has to bring esthetic pleasure, while science has to prove any hypothesis and be objective from anyone's point-of-view.

As science represents the facts and conceptions which exist out our existence, or understanding them as they are objective and indisputable, the subjective perception will prevent science from objective development as it would contradict to its logics and its principles.

Science and art's functions are essential for society: as they both carry informative and educative functions and serve the guarantee of society's progress both spiritual and mental. But still the functions of art and science lie in the planes that do not intercept, Art's function is to give emotional and spiritual education, to teach person who to live in harmony in society, while science touches more global and urgent problems: how to make the world we live in better for a human from materialist point-of-view.

Today society lives in the time of technological progress, and era of computer technologies the problem of subjective perception for scientist starts to disappear as more and more branches and applications of science tightly coincide with art: computer graphics, plastic surgery, construction, etc. Cooperation of science and art gives us material objects created by applications of science, technology and human inspiration: modern cinema effects, fancy cars and other products of civilization are not able to define as either pieces of art or pieces of science and technology.

But there lots of example in history when subjective perception on the hand with rationalism didn't prevented scientist from effective work. May be it refers only to geniuses like Leonardo da Vinci who was not only an artist and sculptor, but talented engineer, scientist and inventor. Some of his ideas anticipated achievements of modern science nearly on five hundred years.

Obviously, the advantage of subjective perception is given to artists, as they receive the total freedom for their creative activity, can experiment and freely interpret the surrounding world, using such tools as symbolism, abstraction, etc. If to look on the painting of Salvador Dali or other surrealistic works, there would be found little objective that is taken from reality, but the rest of the composition is artist's subjectivism its his esthetics, his world which makes us to experience the sense of beauty and admiration. We can mark that subjectivism and subjective nature of perception is the main tool of….....

Show More ⇣


     Open the full completed essay and source list


OR

     Order a one-of-a-kind custom essay on this topic


sample essay writing service

Cite This Resource:

Latest APA Format (6th edition)

Copy Reference
"Subjective Nature Of Perception Be Regarded As" (2005, February 11) Retrieved May 18, 2024, from
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/subjective-nature-perception-regarded-61983

Latest MLA Format (8th edition)

Copy Reference
"Subjective Nature Of Perception Be Regarded As" 11 February 2005. Web.18 May. 2024. <
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/subjective-nature-perception-regarded-61983>

Latest Chicago Format (16th edition)

Copy Reference
"Subjective Nature Of Perception Be Regarded As", 11 February 2005, Accessed.18 May. 2024,
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/subjective-nature-perception-regarded-61983