Verified Document

Sensory Perceptions Essay

¶ … Fallibility of Reliance Upon Sensory Data Accounting

Author's institution affiliation

The Necessity & Fallibility of Reliance upon Sensory Data

Without sensory data, most humans would likely die after very short lives. Sensory data on a very basic level allows beings to navigate and interact with their environments and world. Without sensory information, the simplest tasks could not be accomplished and it would be exceptionally difficult to maintain general safety. Without sensory data, society would not be able to exist as such. How could any tasks be executed? How would anyone know which tasks needed to be executed? How would people calculate their priorities?

While sensory data is quite necessary for people to see, touch, smell, hear, and feel, reliance upon sensory data alone can also be dangerous as there are often a multitude of factors that contribute to a circumstance, event, or occurrence, that many people, including the participants and those otherwise directly or indirectly affected by the event, of which they are unaware. Therefore, it behooves people to attempt to gather as much information about an event as possible factoring in their sensory data regarding the matter, but not solely relying on their sensory data as the primary source...

In legal proceedings and criminal investigations, officers of the law and the court often rely more upon forensic evidence rather than witness testimony, though witness testimony is valuable and admissible in court, because witnesses remember inaccurately. Memory is an inaccurate tool of measurement that changes with time. Other fallibilities with sensory data include poor or imperfect eyesight and hearing, diminishment of stimulus response due to nerve damage, or even something as simple as the sense of smell affected or diminished as a result of a common cold or flu.
Sensory data can be improved with prescription glasses or Lasik eye surgery. Hearing can be improving with surgery and devices such as cochlear implants or other forms of hearing aids. Some nerve damage can be restored as well. There are external devices and forms of technologies that improve existing sensory data output as well as some technology that replaces the receptors for sensory data. To reiterate, people must rely upon their sensory data for everyday functioning. The…

Sources used in this document:
References:

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (2011) The Problem of Perception. Available from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-problem/. 2012 May 04.

Firth, R. (1950) The Sense-Datum Theory. Excerpts from Sense Data and the Precept Theory. Available from http://www.ditext.com/firth/spt2.html. 2012 May 05.
Cite this Document:
Copy Bibliography Citation

Sign Up for Unlimited Study Help

Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.

Get Started Now