How People Perceive the World Based on Their Own Personal Experiences

Essay by tinglekishUniversity, Bachelor'sA+, April 2004

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Every perception a person has is based upon their own personal experience. People perceive the world differently because no two people have the same experiences. Experience makes us who we are. It shapes our minds and opinions, our likes and dislikes. Therefore, it is difficult to have one ideal definition of certain concepts, such as justice, virtue, and an ideal society. Our experiences color our opinions of people different than ourselves and even our opinion of the dark. The only way to create one perception of reality would be to systematically force everyone to have the same experiences. This would diminish the richness and quality of life.

In discussing perception, the dark is a good place to begin. As a society, we think that dark things are evil and light things are good. This concept originated from the Bible. There are many references in Genesis that allude to darkness being bad and light being good.

The first verse in Genesis contains the first seeds of this idea. It states, "Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters." In this excerpt "the deep" is formless and empty, while the surface has God. The deep of the ocean is a considerably darker place than the surface. The first thing God creates is the light. The passage states, "And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness." It does not say that the darkness is good-it says that the light is good-and that God makes a concerted effort to separate the dark from the light (obviously to not have the dark corrupt the good light). God separates light and...