Pulgar,Raphael

StudentNum.2014290010
MMA203Paper#2and#3

RepresentativeRealisminSightandSound:ASynthesis

There are infinite ways of perceiving the world that we live in. Each individual on this
planet is capable of building their own ideas of the world and being in the world. Some might
argue that we are merely living in an illusion that no one else exists asidefromtheself andthe
mind. Others choose to think that the world has been laid out for us to experience and to learn
from. However we may choose to theorize how we exist, there are strengths and criticisms for
eachone.

Representative Realism proposes that we can only be aware ofmentalrepresentationsof

objects, rather than being conscious and continuously processing the objects themselves as they
are in the real world. This was first brought about by Aristotle, later developed further by
proponents such as John Locke and Nicolas Malebranche. This branch of thought generally
assumes that the worldexistspriortousthinkingaboutit.HoweverincontrasttoDirectRealism
or Naive Realism, we experience the world not as it is, but how we think it is after our
interactionswithobjectsinthematerialplane.

Perception according to representative realism then, is an accumulated and synthesized

collection of sense data from our interactions with objects in the world. Philosophers refer to
these raw feelings from our interactions Qualia. One example of qualia is pain. Pain has no
physical tangible manifestation but exists as a reaction to physical stimuli. Each individual is
capable of accumulating qualia in order to gain a representationoftherealworldintheirminds.
This differs from idealism where reality is borne FROM the mind and that everything is justan
illusion and direct realismwhererealityiswhatitiswithouttakingaccountillusionsandsensory
tricksthatbendourperception.

There is a problem with regards to sharing qualia and experiences with other sentient
individuals. A simple example is describing color to a person bornblind.Coloriscreatedinour
mind. It is a result of our brains converting a limited range of the spectrum of light into
something that we can process properly without overloading us. It does notexistinthephysical
world as something tangible or observable like gravity. The perception of color requires a
functioningvisualfacultyinordertocorrectlyabsorbsensedatafromtheworld(Levine,1982).

Joseph Levine describes this phenomenon as the Explanatory Gap (Levine, 1982). The
Explanatory Gap accounts for our inability to accurately describe our perception of the world
with others the inability to share qualia. Coming back to describing color to a blindindividual,
one can use language in a way to describe color by referring to other senses such as describing
red as hot or blue as cool. The limitations of our languagesbecomeapparentbecauseofthe
explanatory gap as it is impossible to combine words and cohesive sentences to speak to an
individualinordertospontaneouslyconjureanimageofacolorintheirmind(Levine,1982)

A less extreme example of the explanatory gap would be describing the color red toa
person afflicted with color blindness in that spectralrange.Thoughhisvisualsenseisfunctional
to a point where you could communicate visual ideas, it would still not be adequate enough to
completely describe the quality of redness to the person. In cases like these, it becomes
apparent that someelementsoftherealworldexistonlyinrepresentationswe havecommittedto
memory from our experiences and interactions with real world objects. An impairment of our
sensesdistortsourperceptionofrealitybutnotnecessarilyrealityitself.

This brings about speculation that among individuals with normal vision, would there
be discrepancies between their interpretation of sense data such as the color red? Wouldyour
green be the same as my green? What if twopeoplewithunimpairedvisionseeandprocess
the color red with a small discrepancy? Assuming that were true, both individuals would
resumeinteractionasthoughtheyseethesamecolorthesameway.

Aside from sensing and using assumptions toshapeourperceptionofreality,wearealso

able toproposequeriesandinquireaboutotherpeoplesperceptions.Thisissomethinguniqueto
humanbeings.Whilegorillascanbetaughthowtocommunicateeffectivelyusingsignlanguage,
they have never been able to gain the cognition to ask questions. The reason behind this is that
they presume that what they know is also what we know and therefore bypasses the need to
inquire. Apes have used language to communicate and showemotionaswellasshowtheability
to express new thoughts at the level of a 2 year old human child. While they are capable of
using language to express themselves, they have never asked to inquire about things we know
thattheydont.(Jordania,2006)

Sound is composed of vibration and travels through all forms of matter in varying
degrees. It is processed as sense data by our hearing mechanism. Unlike visual information,
sound cannot be observed at one state in time as itisadynamicformofinformation.Inorderto
be able to observe and process auditory signals, there has to be a reliable form of storing and
recreating the information. When music first became standardized, sheet musicwasusedsothat
performers can recreate musical ideas indefinitely. In order forpeopletoexperience music,they
needed more than sheet music: they needed performers to represent the sheet music from
something visual to something aural. Sound Recording was borne from the need to recreate
soundwithouttheneedofperformersorreexperiencingauralphenomena.(Huber,2010)

Recorded audioisalsoarepresentationofreality(Huber,2010).Whenwelistentomusic
on portable devices, the performing artists are nowhere in our vicinity and may even be long
dead. Digital Audio in fact is not even an accurate representation of real sound. The
NyquistShannon Sampling Theorem is a mathematical formula that shows that realworld
(analog) data can be can be represented in the digital world by making small, discrete
representations (samples) of reality and interpolating them with tolerances so close that humans
cantdiscerntoomuchofadifferencebetweenthetwo(Huber,2010).

Before digital recording, sound was stored into a media that can replicate these physical
vibrations. However these reproductions do not represent the "Realworld" sound due to lossof
fidelityandphysicallimitations.

Digital recordings basically take analog sensory data and replicate them using small
bits of information digitized (converted to binary code) as minute, almost inaudible bursts of
sound to represent physical vibrations (Huber, 2010). Putting thesebits togethercanrecreatethe
effect of sound waves similar to running your fingernail through a corrugated surface. If you
move your fingertip across the surfaceslowly,thesoundyouhearisdisjointed.Butasyoumove
your fingernail faster, the vibration increasesinfrequency.Thefasteryourfingernailrunsacross
the surfaces, the higher the pitch of the sound. The corrugations function similar to bits and the
higher the bitrate of the file, the easier it is to producehigherpitchedsounds.Becausesampling
removes some data, there will be a limit as to how clearthereproduceddata is.Thatiswhylow
quality mp3s sound muffled or garbled if streamed from sites like youtube on low quality. The
betterthefidelity,thelargerthefilehastobetoaccommodatethedata(Huber,2010).

We do not hear music the way it is actually represented in reality when we listentolow
bit rate streaming like youtube. To keep the file sizesmallforfastdatatransfer,alotofdatahas
to be removed. Similar to how ths sntnce stllmks snsevntho prts ofthwrdsarmssngcanstill
be understood, but harder to process both semantically and emotionally. In a sense, when we
listen to recorded music and begin to process it In our minds, we are subjecting ourselves to
merely a caricature of what it is supposed to sound like. Recorded music is a disfigured
representation of reality that plays on our ability to perceive. It is equivalent to deliberately
making people aurally impaired while making them believe that what they hear is an accurate
representationofreality.

In conclusion, sight and sound are only two of the senses we use to make sense of our
world. While some mayarguethatwemightnotevenexist,ourrealityiswhatwemakeofitand
theseareonlyafewideasofhowwearebeingsintheworld.

References
Huber, D. M., & Runstein, R. E. (2010). Modern recording techniques: Description based on
printversionrecord.Includesindex.Amsterdam:FocalPress/Elsevier.
Jordania, I. M. (2006). Who asked the first question: The origins of human choral singing,
intelligence,languageandspeech.Tbilisi,Georgia:Logos.
Levine,J.(1983).MaterialismandQualia:TheExplanatoryGap.
Levine,

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