Our first TOK lesson consisted on how people depend on their senses to reason.
To begin the lecture, Ms Briggs asked us about what the weather was like the day before. No one hesitated and said their opinion, they knew they could not be wrong, they had experienced it. According to the opinions given, it was cold and rainy, no one disagreed. This demonstrates that people get to conclusions according to what they have felt, herd or saw. As defined by the oxford dictionary reason is: “the power of the mind to think, understand, and form judgments by a process of logic.” However, this process of logic relying only on the senses was an idea I had never thought before, which really got me thinking.
As the lecture proceed, we discussed how even thought we all have the same senses, we do not respond in the same way to the same stimulus. This was demonstrated by how every person in the class remembered a different detail of a picture that was shown to us for some seconds. In addition, we talked about how for some people letters and sounds have different colors when they see them or listen to them. These are called synesthetes, they have a neurological condition in which their senses are combined. I was really impressed when I saw the video of a synesthete who has three senses combined, taste, sight and hearing. I also noticed that my classmates were just as dumbfounded as I was.
I really enjoyed the lecture because it got me thinking and analyzing ideas I would not have thought by myself. It made me ask myself if we take for granted our senses and if so, why does this happen if they are so useful for every single thought we have?
