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Lauren Poon's picture

Your vision's fine

I really liked the blind spot test we did last week, but I never realized how large this spot was. I'm missing a large piece of scenery when I'm driving down the road. However, the brain fills in this spot with an educated guess of what should be there. What if there was some strange object floating around, like a plastic bag. The brain would not assume that the bag was there. Would I not be able to see it? Would other people see the bag because it's not in their blind spot? Is my sense of reality completely false? Should I be worried about driving my car this weekend?

These were some questions raised in class. Is our sense of reality completely different from others around us? How are we not crashing into each other? Luck? Actually, I'm not too concerned about driving my car or worried about my blind spot missing the plastic bag. I will definitely be able to see the plastic bag for numerous reasons. 1) My eyes are constantly looking around the entire road. My blind spot is constantly changing. At some point, I will be able to see a foreign object on the road. 2) The car is moving. As the foreign object moves closer to me, it moves out of my blind spot. I'll certainly be able to see it.

I don't think our sense of reality is that different from the image received in the eye. People tend to have the same perception of objects. No two humans are living and perceiving a different world. However, humans and other organisms are living and perceiving a different world because we have different sensory limitations. Every kind of organisms perceives reality to the best of its ability with the limitations it has been given.

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