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This week’s lectures brought us right back to our discussion and frustration with defining and understanding reality. This week’s lectures revealed our human-centrism when we think about sensory systems. The example of a tree making no sound when in falls in the forest reveals this centrism. We have created and defined these sensory systems as those which are based around human experience and human understanding. We even discussed those animals which are sensitive to UV and infrared light in addition to the visual spectrum. Do these animals qualify as having vision because they can see the visual spectrum in addition to these other ranges of light? What would happen if there was an animal who could not see the visual spectrum but could see the infrared light spectrum alone? Would they still qualify as having “vision”? I would argue that the implications of saying that there is no sound if a tree falls implies that we have not truly understood sensational reality, but we have begun to understand sound/vision/our experience within reality.

We have agreed that it is the nervous system which is in control of our reality: it dictates what we can understand/make judgments about in the empirical world. This new information about color and sound further exemplifies the kind of sensors that our nervous systems have placed on the reality which may be out there. We experience a very selective reality, one which we can process, integrate and make judgments about. I stand by my posts from previous weeks in saying that I believe there is a very strong evolutionary reason for why this is the case. But regardless of the reasons why the nervous system works like it does, it is crucial to understand the ways in which the nervous system acts. Our discussion into vision and sound reveals the fact that there may be a part of reality that we cannot understand because our nervous system is not equipped to be able to comprehend and integrate signals from it. Since many different animals have different ways of understanding reality (specifically in the different ways of receiving and processing different kinds of light) it seems then that different parts of reality are revealed in unique ways to different animals. Simply put, your reality is dependent on your nervous system and how it operates.

Since there are differences in nervous systems across species and even among different animals in the same species and further differences between individuals, it is difficult to discuss “normalcy” and “disability.” Who sets the standard for what is normal and what is a deviation from normal? From our discussion of sound it seems that it is humans who set the standard and the bar for normalcy of senses. If you can see the visual spectrum, and you can hear between 20-20,000 Hz then you are “normal”. We push all the animals who have unique nervous systems to conform to our “normalcy” construction. Even worse, we push one another to fit into the bounds of being normal or not. What is disability? I don’t believe that having a nervous system which operates in a different way should be seen as a disability. That is true that you might not be able to see reds and yellows, but that isn’t necessarily strictly a disadvantage. Disability is completely relative to the “norm” you determine. We have based disability on nervous system and developmental problems for so long, yet I don’t think this is sufficient. A disability as seen by one person may be advantageous to another. Disability is a tricky issue, since we have already accepted there are different ways of seeing reality and it is difficult to assess which one is “better”. Nervous systems are different and they interpret signals differently and so realities are different for different people. Everyone is disabled then in some sense, but I doubt there is anyone who is actually the standard. When we say someone is disabled because they are colorblind we are making a judgment about what their reality should be like. Nervous systems are different, reality is relative, disability shouldn’t be seen as so black and white; end of story.