Perception

Perception

Philosophically, perception is just an image of something that is more tangible.  Psychologically, perception is an interpretation of a person, a place, a thing or even an event.  And since this is psychological, such is subjective and such is far from reality.  Perception might approximate reality but it will never be an equivalent of reality.

Herman von Helmholz (1821-1894) postulated that the human eye sees things differently, hence there is a multitude of version of what one is actually perceiving, the main reason that we are seeing things uniformly is because of the existence of likelihood principle and the process of unconscious inference.  Theoretically, perception could distort reality depending on the state of the senses and cognition of an individual.

One way of using and manipulating the concept of perception is the usage of words and language.  Joseph Goebbels once said that a lie oftentimes repeated becomes the truth.  So a practical application of perception would be to lie so as to distort reality and bending a reality according to what one would like it be.  Just like a painter, reality is your canvass.  According to the usage, manipulation and subtlety of reality bending lies being utilized.

A caveat for this perception bending design (i.e lying), though one could get away for a time, or even get away most of the time; one cannot get away with lying all the time.  Philosophically, the truth eventually comes out.  Reality eventually supersedes perception.

In the realm of cognitive psychology, for a time, perception could be distorted but eventually, reality exposes everything. 

September 7, 2019