"Do our emotions help us in understanding reality or do they lead us to create it?"
Asad Ali Tayyab
IB TOK
2nd Draft
09-09-09
Block 7
Ms. Sangeeta Kala
Word Count: 994 words
"There is an objective reality out there, but we view it through the spectacles of our beliefs, attitudes, and values" (Myers, Online). Reality can be defined in several different ways and Lagemaat divides reality in three different parts: common-sense realism, scientific realism and phenomenalism. Common-sense realism dictates that "the way we perceive the world mirrors the way the world is" (87) while phenomenalism states that "to be is to be perceived" (100) and that all knowledge is based on past experience. The conflict between the two is that common-sense realism takes reality to be objective while phenomenalism describes reality as a subjective experience. If we take common-sense realism to be true, then reality is just understood by us and on the other hand, phenomenalism is a subjective reality and thus, it is created based on our past experiences.
English: Carl Friedrich Gauss on his deathbad, 185...
Statue of C. F. Gauss in Braunschweig
Lithograph showing a portrait of the German mathem...However, is there any common-sense realism that is created by us? For example, if we see a chair, we understand that it is an object that is existent and its main purpose is to be sat on but if we use the same chair to hit someone, have we created a new reality?
Emotions are tools that contribute and help us to sometimes understand reality while create reality on other occasions. Does this mean that emotions can not help us to create as well as understand reality at the same time? It is possible to create as well as understand reality at the same time. For example, Newton's second law of motion is the creation of a new reality as it was unknown before; however Newton had to ardently...