Philosophy-Education
The Mind sees and hears.
Are the senses deceiving us?
“The mind sees and hears; the rest are blind and deaf.”
This ancient quote, so enigmatic and thought-provoking, beckons us to delve deeper: ‘What does it truly mean?’
How can the mind see but also hear, while we know that literally our eyes see and the ears hear?
Well, it is not so problematic nowadays because the sciences have progressed and proved the related functions of our brain and our perceptual ability to a great extent. We now know that our brain processes visual and auditory information and that our perception of the world is not a direct reflection of reality but a construction based on our sensory inputs.
However, in the context of ancient Greece, where this quote originated, the conclusion it presents would have been truly remarkable. It would have sounded more like a riddle to people’s ears then, as it challenged the conventional understanding of perception and reality.
Our primary senses are the ones that receive the information; our mind, as the interpreter of these sensory inputs, comes next to process, compare, judge, and, if it proves correct, assess each stimulus.
