PatrickHenry replied: It would certainly look different; but I don't think it would be different. Many animals have better senses than we do, and many have worse. But I suggest that we're all dealing with the same reality
This is a very important point PatrickHenry has made, and it actually contradicts what betty boop seems to be saying. (Sorry bb!)
Perception is not, "objectifying," at least in the sense that it is what determines "objectivity." It is reality that is objective, regardless of how it is perceived. It is objective because it is what it is independent of anyone's perception or knowledge of it. (I am speaking strictly in terms of human consciousness.)
I also have the impression that bb's view of perception is the Kantian, or what is sometimes called the "computer model".
I have that impression, betty, from this sentence, "What we 'see' seems to be what mostly constructs reality for us." I suspect you think of percepts as something created in the mind/brain with data delivered to it by the nervous system, the way a computer creates images from digital data delivered to it via sensors or a digital camera.
Now this view is not totally incorrect. Certainly our perceptual consciousness is associated with the brain, and certainly the reactions of the nervous system to external and internal stimuli end up affecting reactions in the brain. The part of the description that is most likely to be incorrect the supposition the nervous system is merely transmitting data, and the what the brain is doing is merely processing that data. The actual process is probably infinitely more complex and much more like an analog system of interaction than a one-way digital transmission system. It is also likely that perception is not isolated to specific points in the brain, but an aspect of the whole neural system. (This is one reason simply stimulating nerve endings does not produce the same percepts those same nerves normally stimulated do, and why cochlear implants, for example, cannot reproduce naturally heard sound.)
In any case, what perception does not do is "make-up" or "construct" percepts. Perception, however it works, is our direct awareness of material existence. Perception is not cognitive (i.e. it provides no knowledge). It is only our means of being conscious of existence (including our own). Knowledge is about that which we are conscious of. (Not making this distinction has gotten most philosophers, like Russel, for example, in lots of trouble.)
Here is something for you to chew on, and a challenge:
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A PERCEPTUAL (e.g. optical) ILLUSION!
If you do not already know this, please challange it.
I'll give you a hint why this is true. Perception does not know anything, therefore; cannot make any mistakes.
This business of human consciousness is terribly important. The views of Kant have so corrupted philosophy with his repudiation of consciousness, no field of philosophy today infected by that corruption (which is most of it) is sound.
Hank
That's an ancient subject of debate. Do we perceive reality directly, or do we just make a mental map -- like Plato's cave analogy would suggest?
I think it's a bit of both. To some extent, the world we perceive is something like watching the image a robot sends back while it's exploring a mine shaft or something. We're not really in the shaft. We're only receiving images.
On the other hand, when we're actually in that shaft ourselves, our brains are still mapping things that our eyes perceive, but there's more going on. Our bodies are in motion, which we sense directly. Our balance is affected. We know the extension and position of our limbs. We're getting tactile impressions from the walls. We feel the air flow. Lots of stuff is going on. It's far more than the sterile, indirect impressions we were getting from the robot probe.
So until we can be hooked up to something like Robert Nozick's "experience machine," we'll know the difference between direct and indirect experiences.