Re: "Perception is reality"

["Fritz A. Seiler" <faseiler@NMIA.COM>]

"J. J. Rozental" wrote:

> 

> Dear Fritz,

> 

> Your example was one that we are familiar, because we are familiar with  the

> fact of our five senses. We can detect by touch, taste, sight, smell and

> sound, however, we are taking about ionizing radiation matter that we cannot

> see, hear, smell, feel, or sense.





Dear J.J. [...or is it Jose or Julio?  :-) ],



	Thank you for throwing the case of partial sensory perception into the

discussion! It gave me quite a bit of pause. Indeed, how do you help a

blind person to "visualize" or generate some kind of a 'reality' for a

"tunnel of ionization"?  That "tunnel" is, of course, a seeing person's

way of using a physical picture in an attempt to create a concept for

the action of ionizing radiation.  

	Personally, I am one of those weird persons who like an equation to go

along with that picture of an ionization tunnel. The more complex and

detailed the equation the better, because that complexity reflects the

depth of our understanding of this phenomenon. But then that is just

another way of perceiving the physical situation.  

	This is, of course, not the way social scientists view the concept of

'perception' when they say "perception is reality".  The perception I am

talking about here is a "physical perception" of reality, based on our

interpretation of experimental facts.  But then, we should always

remember Albert Einstein's comment: "All our science, measured against

reality, is primitive and childlike, and yet it is the most precious

thing we have."



Best regards,



Fritz



************************



Fritz A. Seiler, Ph. D.

President

Sigma Five Consulting

P.O. Box 1709

Los Lunas, NM 87031, USA

Tel.   505-866-5193

Fax.   505-866-5197

e-mail: faseiler@nmia.com



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