forum for week of 2 October

How can we not rely on our perceptions? Everything we learn we interpret through perception. I think we have to understand that our senses can give us false information at times because that is just a part of how our human brains operate. The awareness of our shortcomings provide us with reasons to empirically research and test things to come to conclusions. The more we know about the mistakes our brains make, the better we can do tests to avoid misinterpretation. The video linking to youtube showing the McGurk effect was astounding! I was sure the first time watching it that I must be hearing two separate voice-overs, and then they showed a split screen of the different ways the mouths were moving. At first, I KNEW that there must be two different voice overs, as my brain told me I was hearing "bah" or "vah", but obviously my senses were lying to me. We can't avoid perceptual illusions, but we have no choice but to use our human brains, be aware of said illusions, and work within our limits to attain knowledge. Otherwise, it would be extremely pessimistic to think we have no chance of knowing anything simply because of how our brains and perception works (or doesn't work).