Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Do we see ourselves clearly?

Not while ago, I was talking to one of my acquaintances about set of paradigms that we carry and how we perceive other individuals. I suggested that what we see depends on the framework that is built by previous experiences which aids in processing the information as it appears in front of our sensory organs.

Obviously, it works in a closed loop fashion in step-by-step manner. We hear something, ears must be creating a raw sound file of the noise, it is then sent to higher brain function where that sound file is converted into more crisper format, finally that sound file is compared with a noise that we heard before or a noise that we have correlated to certain object by experience, for example, a ship horn that we see in a movie is correlated to a ship, although we have never seen a ship, or for example, a sound file created by heresay, somebody immitated how dog barks to us and then we correlate barking with dog.

Obviously, all this processing is based on external input received to our sensory organs to create a set of experiences, outstandingly clear in our brain.

Now, my question is 'how do we see ourselves?'

Do we even see ourselves? Do we have a mental image of our own in our brain? If yes, then how that mental image is created? Is it based on what we hear from other people about their experience with us? Or , is it based on our perception of their experience with us? How can we rely on such information, since this information can very well be flawed.

For example, I find my voice normal but people say it is gruff and dry. I am tall but when I look at myself even in mirror, I can not see any difference (of course forgetting measurements in feet etc.). My perception about myself in absolute sense is quite difficult to explain.

I am trying to understand how do we ourselves?