After reading Bertrand Russell’s The Problems of Philosophy
There were some questions that strike out when one finishes the text. One such question involves the difference between appearance and reality. Russell explains that the way things appear is different from how they really are in the strict sense. As such, reality is immutable while the appearance changes depending on the point of view the observer chooses to take (Russell 2). When one considers this argument, expression of reality is subjective, for example, two people stand on a pier and view a lake, they will have different interpretations of how the water looks since they can never occupy the same point of view.
The same problem of knowledge
Led to a question that seemed unanswerable after applying it to different scenarios. The question is whether it is even possible for humans to perceive reality as it is. For example, according to science, human beings perceive color and vision from the reflection of light on objects (Boyce 17). However, humans can only detect the natural light spectrum of the electromagnetic radiation. Since there are other bands in the spectrum such as Gamma and Infrared, one can pose the question of what the world would look like if humans had the capability to perceive these other bands. Ideally, it follows that our perception of the world is inhibited by our inability to perceive these bands. As such, one can say that the natural world will look very differently were humans are able to detect the entire spectrum of the electromagnetic sphere. Therefore, human perception of the reality of natural phenomena is limited to the perspective of natural light. Such a realization, thus, leads to the question that, if we can only view nature from one perspective, then what does the world actually look like?
Works cited
Boyce, Peter Robert. Human factors in lighting. CRC Press, 2014.
Russell, Bertrand. The problems of philosophy. OUP Oxford, 2001.
