Sense Perception Essay

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TOK assessment: Evaluate the strengths & weaknesses of sense perception as a way of knowing Perception can be defined as one’s opinion and/or one’s interpretation. One form of perception is sense perception. Sense perception is based on the usage of our five senses. The five senses being the ability to taste, touch, hear, see and smell. Taste helps us to define things we eat into categories such as sweet, sour, bitter etc. Touch allows us to feel things such as the softness of a woollen sweater. The ability to hear allows us to identify sounds such as the bark of a dog to warn us of approaching strangers etc. The stimuli of sight allow us to visualise the world around us and lastly the sense of smell helps us to smell things such as the calming aroma of scented candles. Sense perception, as a way of knowing has its own strengths and weaknesses that come with it. In my opinion, there are more strengths then weaknesses of sense perception. This is why I think having our senses to be able to perceive is a very valuable gift. The extents to which we can use sense perception as a way of knowing depends on how limited our senses are. Our senses do not function at their full capability. One reason as to why our five senses are limited is because most of the time we have too many things going on around us which causes us to ignore many stimuli. An example of this would be when I’d be in my room and have music being played quite loudly whilst typing vigorously on my laptop; I’d tend to ignore the constant sound of my dad knocking on my door. A second weakness of sense perception is that our senses can be easily damaged. Our sense of sight can be easily damaged through the constant exposure of our eyes to sun rays, though sun rays affect our eyes at a slow place it is still possible for our sight to be damaged by this. Our sight can also be restricted or lost due to
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