Tok essay

What do I mean by senses? Humans are known to have five senses; sight, touch, smell, taste and hearing. These senses have their own specific uses, and some appear to be more reliable than others. In fact, the only way that we get an understanding of the world is through our senses. Imagine someone who does not possess any of these senses, it is not possible that they can ever have access to knowledge.In the case of truth, what do I mean by it? This comes with different points of view. There are also different kinds of truths such as religious truths and scientific truths. Certain truths make more use of the senses than others, for example, in the case of religion, one does not necessarily have to see something in order to belief it, it’s grounded on faith than anything else. In scientific truths, however, the reliability of the senses is tremendous, without their uses, we could never have known the truths we do in science. The whole notion of truth varies from culture to culture as well. The way in which we perceive this truth is also open to interpretations which are due to the idea of relativism.
But for simplicity sake, I will narrow it all down to arts, mathematics and the natural sciences.

An artist’s eyes are his greatest assets in his field of work. I have seen, however, works of art by people who are blind, and the only way that they can appreciate these works is through sense of touch. One thing I noticed, when I had the opportunity to host a blind student in an art exhibition in my school, is that the way that that blind student perceives and appreciates that piece of art is totally different from the way I do. They do not get the same image as I do, they do not have concept of color especially if they were born blind. The artist Esref Armagan is an example that it is possible to have images of the world in your head without having visual perception, images of the way the world is perceived to those with vision, “He paints houses and mountains and lakes and faces and butterflies, but he's never seen any of these things” (1) When does he trust his senses to give him truth? According to the article, he is able to make his drawings through the images created in his mind from hearing the description of others. Then he uses what is called ‘truth by coherence’, after hearing the same description from various people, he forms the conclusion that truth must be as he hears it. This truth acquired, however may have some flaws, as it is based on the perception of others and along with their own interpretations. The idea of color is also raised. He has no notion of color, yet ”he knows that there's an important visual quality to seen objects called ‘color’ and that it varies from object to object. He's memorized what has what color and even which ones clash.” (1) As a person with sight, I fail to see how he can ever understand how green or yellow looks like without ever seeing them; how can he describe how green looks like when I come short of words? The issue of relativism is also being raised; various people have different interpretations of a particular painting. In art, it all depends from what angle it is perceived.