In chapter eleven, the authors seek to answer the question, why would two people who have been exposed to the same thing with equal amounts of information have two different perceptions of that thing? For example, there are some who called Jesus the messiah sent here to pay for our sins. Others, with equal information and experience with Jesus say he was a demon sent by Satan to lead us astray. What causes this difference in perception?
Perception is what is created during the interaction between a stimulus and one who perceives. Those who study perceptions lean toward one of two extremes. The first of these extremes is the subjectivist extreme. In this, people discount the importance of objective stimulus, saying that perception are arbitrary mental constructs that we impose on the surrounding world. This view has one major problem. If all objective stimuli were arbitrary mental constructs, how would we drive a car, fly a plane, or walk from one class to the next? “Our skill at responding to our physical environment assures us that there is an objective world out there and that we process its information with remarkable accuracy and efficiency.” (p. 61) In saying this, this view is hurt by the fact that we can indeed drive a car and walk from building to building without falling into a pit we cannot perceive, because we do perceive our surroundings.
Our other view on perception is the objectivist extreme, also called the naïve realist extreme. In this, it says that our experience with the surrounding world is reality. In other words, “as we perceive it, it is so.”(p. 61) Truth is obtained by checking beliefs against what is perceived in nature. If we believe a tree will make a sound when it falls, then all we have to do is go and see a tree fall, observe if it makes a sound, and we have our answer. The downfall of this view is that it “discounts the state of the perceiver.” (p. 61)
The state of a perceiver is dependent on three variables. Where is the perceiver’s attention at? What prior experience does the perceiver have with the observation in question? Also, what did the perceiver expect to happen? If the perceiver’s attention is focused on a singular aspect of what is being observed, his perspective will reflect that aspect. Also, the perceiver’s prior experience would influence what would dictate what is expected, both of which influence. An example of this is found in a “what did you see” video. In this video, you are asked to observe people throwing a ball back and forth between four people and keep track of how many times each person touches the ball. As the video plays, a pair of people dressed in monkey suits dance in the background. If you are concentrating on the ball, you miss dancing apes, thus showing how one can concentrate too much on a singular aspect of something. If you have already watched the video, or think you have, you are drawing on prior experiences and expectations.
From our experiences, we form schemas, which are way that we interpret and organize reality. We do this since infancy. In doing this, we can create problems for ourselves. Once we think we see something, it is difficult to not see it. For example, there is a picture with, what looks like, a bunch of ink blots on it. These blots actually make up a dog. Once you see that the dog is in the picture, you cannot un-see that dog.
We also allow what we expect to happen influence our perceptions. In an experiment, people were shown a slightly blurred picture. These people correctly identified what the picture was seventy-five percent of the time. If people were shown a horribly blurred picture, then a slightly blurred picture, the percentage of correct identifications went down to twenty-five percent. Those who were show the badly blurred picture has an assumption of what the slightly blurred picture was. The lesson to take from this is those have wrong ideas about reality will be harder to convince to the truth.
Religious perceptions depend of the state of the perceiver. We often find ourselves questioning if the little voice inside our head is the voice of God, or just another random thought. So how did Moses know that it was God talking to him through a burning bush? He was looking through the eyes of faith. Moses had the proper perception set, otherwise, he would not have been able to perceive that God was speaking to him.
What is the difference between a man who sees spiders all over him during an acid trip, and one who says he saw God during a point in which he fasted himself to the brink of starvation? Both would seem to be hallucinations, one brought on by drugs, and the other brought on by the body not having the nourishment it needs. Our authors say that it is not the experience that matters in these types of situations, but rather the effects of the experience and where they stand in their spiritual life. Feelings should not be the ultimate criteria for judging spirituality, but the effects of the experience. Judge by the fruits they produce.
There were some good points brought up in this chapter. One I liked was the author's “state of perception affects the perception.” A quote I take to heart is this: “If you are to truly understand, then you will need the contrast, not adhere to a single idea.” In this quote, you are told several things. One, perception of an idea can be faulty. This fault is due to our state during perception. Our experience, our expectations, and where our attention is can influence our perception. Understanding this, we should make a point to study an item from different angle so we are not oversimplifying it, thus the second point of this quote. How could people think Jesus was a demon? Try to see it through their eyes. He was upturning several major aspects of the Jewish faith, and said he was God’s son. If someone were to come into the room I’m writing in, claim that they were sent by God and try to change several key aspects of my faith, I would be in doubt. God could have sent them, but I do not have much to go off of in that. To know if they were sent by God, I should look at them from several different planes of observation. What is their history? Where do they stand in their spiritual life? What is their “fruits?” How can one have different perspectives from another while observing the same thing? It depends on what predicated variables influenced their perception.
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