I have always been amazed by the intricacy and delicacy of the sensory systems, especially that of vision. It seems a small miracle that people have senses at all; because when the slightest problem occurs, the whole phenomena is wiped out or terribly impaired. Yet, when we consider the instruments that science has concocted to detect various electromagnetic wavelengths, sound waves, and so on---humans have very limited capabilities to sense in the larger scheme of things!

Perception is amazing in this way because of how people develop their sense individually and how dependent some people need to be on devises or other human beings because they have deficient sensing. Many people (myself included) are near-sighted and need to use additional lens to be able to see "normally", but blind people do not have this option at all. These people need to use their other senses to adapt in order to be able to function. It is often believed that people with sensory impairments must "develop" their other senses to some super-capacity but I have not heard much proof of this. Rather, I believe that they just pay more attention to what information their other senses provide and are therefore just able to use them more efficiently and not waste information provided to them.

Sensing is a leap of faith. It is believing what you are seeing, hearing, feeling etc when you never ever really know "for sure". Most people do not question their ability to sense and never doubt what their senses are telling them because there is no where to turn to for answers . There is a great deal of room for doubt in what we sense but no way for us to close off this gap--it is either leap or stay still for the rest of your life. This gap lets us make perception mistakes but considering how "right" we "feel" most of the time I would say that it is a good bet. Still, judging the security of our bet is difficult being that our sense of everything could be terribly scewed or inaccurate. I prefer not to second guess myself and just accept the fact that I will never know what I am missing and pretty much prefer to stay that way.

You've put your finger on a central issue that does indeed fall out of thinking seriously about sensory systems. Yes, it means there is always "room for doubt". And yes, of course, it means "seeing" depends on faith, and usually it turns out to be well-justified. But that doesn't mean one has to "stay that way". As you point out, humans have the capacity to extend their senses in a variety of technological ways. They have as well the capacity to "see more clearly" by sharing what they see with others. So, maybe without "second guessing" one can use the knowledge of limitations to get better? PG