Sunday, February 22, 2009

sense perception

Those who are doing magic are they really doing it or are they decieving our sence perception
how do you judge this?
Posted by Anonymous at 2:27 PM
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6 comments:

Julian H. Kitching said...

Melaku,

This is an interesting question.

Remember last semester when we were discussing the various ways of knowing? One of the really important questions about ways of knowing is: what do we do when they conflict with one another?

Your question brings up a possible example of this - your sense perception encourages you to believe in the "magic" but your power of reason urges you to reject it as a trick. Now if you are a small baby, maybe you lack the experience of the world to apply to this situation and you would go with your sense perception, but, as we get older and more experienced, things can change - we become less gullible... Or do we...?

February 22, 2009 at 7:15 PM
Chilot Berassa said...

“Gentility without ability is stupidity”

Magicians do not exist. Most magicians know the limitations of our sense perception and also they have some more knowledge than that we have. For instance, a magician can mix base and phenolphthalein and can change the color of a solution. But we think that the person has changed the water which is colorless to pink. So limited knowledge may mislead to wrong belief. Don’t you think Melaku?

February 23, 2009 at 6:05 PM
Julian H. Kitching said...

Good point, Chilot, and good example. So ignorance is a factor here, related to my point above about reason, I think. If we don't have the knowledge we can't reason out a plausible "non-magic" explanation.

I am reminded of the story concerning Christopher Columbus who apparently was stuck without supplies in Jamaica when the local people refused to help him. As an experienced marine navigator, he knew about astronomy and was aware that a lunar eclipse was due, so he told the local people that, if they didn't change their mind and help to stock his ship, the gods would get angry and turn the moon red. The moon indeed turned red and he got his way!

Not sure that I understand your "quotation", though...

February 24, 2009 at 8:59 AM
~ said...

wow, i didn't know that... Seems Columbus did more than just 'find' America...

I like Chilot's reasoning, its making sense to me..

But would you like to consider the possibility that there are occurrences and happenings beyond the definitions of science?

DO you practice any religion, As in the ones that involve some divine being? If you do, then obviously you believe in the existence of things beyond science and the issue of ignorance.

And if this is true, then wouldn;t you agree that in some cases magicians DO exist?

February 24, 2009 at 9:27 PM
Julian H. Kitching said...

Here is one version of the Columbus story:

http://www.space.com/spacewatch/080208-ns-lunar-eclipse-columbus.html

February 25, 2009 at 8:50 AM
Anonymous said...

actually what i can say is that truely magicians don't exist rather they are tricksters who know how to really play with the human mind.i am not really sure about this but i read it on the web about 'magicians'what they do is that lets say the want to do a magic on making a salt shaker disappear ,so what he does is as much as possible get his audience to focus on something on the right hand while using speed takes the salt shaker using the left hand and hides it whoever on the other hand their is also something interesting about an Indian magic rope which a boy used to climb into the sky the magician got so bored that he climbed the rope and killed the boy ,the boy's body part fell down to the earth where the audience watched as the magician put the boy to life again so what would we explain about this because it is recorded so i guess magician exist. penina

April 8, 2009 at 3:45 PM

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