A look at beauty through perception

Beauty (by Grace Nichols, 1986)

Beauty

is a fat black woman

walking the fields

pressing a breezed hibiscus

to her cheek

while the sun lights up

her feet

Beauty

is a fat black woman

riding the waves

drifting in happy oblivion

while the sea turns back

to hug her shape

Our society has drilled into the people that beauty is the skin on the surface that adds appearance to the structure of a person. We have perceived beauty to be that perfect slim, smooth skin girl with the perfect cut hair that complements her appearance; or a guy wearing a tight shirt that further complements his body build with the dazzling smile across his face and the beautiful eyes staring at you. We have put the word "beauty" with "perfection" and expected to see them in pairs. The pressure that society has set for young girls and boys to be "beautiful" are relatively high and are so unrealistic in order to sell you products that apparently makes you more beautiful. The problems is that we have blindly taken society's definition of beautiful and have started battering our faces with creams, swallowing pills and applying creams, herbs and medicines to be perfect; however what we don't realise is the fact that beauty is found in the person and not the skin that engulfs the person. The poem by Grace Nichols further conveys this idea; Grace compares the definition of beauty to the exact opposite facade of beauty that society has thrown at us. However what grace does is that she throws a contrast in the visual description of beauty but then describes that activity the person to do a true act of beauty. Grace describes beauty to be a thing that a person has a hold of and is not something that a person has to necessarily acquire. Beauty is not perfection but the understanding of joy and happiness against all odds; beauty is in the action not the reflection; beauty is in the core and not on the surface.

Looking at these videos you can see there is something fundamentally wrong with the what society has told us what beauty is. The visual aspects of both videos shows the stereotypes of beauty, they show what society wants us to think what beauty. The first video portrays the idea that the beauty that society shows us to be beautiful is photoshopped and edited which makes it fake. Therefore we as humans are killing ourselves over by taking pills, applying creams and herbs in attempts to achieve a body that was initially photoshopped. Which brings about the idea that beauty set by society to be perfection can never be achieved regardless of products they sell you, so then what beauty truly is, is the person as the person being. The second video complements a similar idea that shows the nonsense that society breeds about beauty to kids, teenagers and adults.

By visually demonstrating truths, facts or any problem for the matter one is likely to convey more persuasive aspects. Visuals imagery helps us imagine the consequences and the different problems of our world. Visual imagery helps show a clear cut problem which persuades us more towards the solutions and visual imagery is one of the most attention grabbing and persuasive structure. Showing the behind the scenes of the many advertisements and showing our mindless struggle for beauty we are able to comprehend a clear problem. Showing this thorough visual media we are able to understand the different truths and formulate our opinions and understand that beauty is not what society tells you but is what we as the people make it to be. 

Humans are limited but at the sometime expandable, we can use our eyes to see but our eyes which have certain limitations are great for perceiving and understanding complicated patterns and sequences. Our eyes and minds are vulnerable to great deal of visual persuasion and therefore there is the questions that how do we know if what we see is actually the truth out there? maybe it is or maybe it isn't. A great of convincing is done through the images and a little play in the images can greatly affect out understanding of any matter. The idea of trusting our senses becomes an arising questions the longer we think about it, but there is no choice but to trust our senses and make the best of it. 

Sense Limitations and Drawbacks

The world is a perception of our senses and a translation of the brain to make the reality in which we

live. The brain in our heads makes the bridge between us and the world around us. The creation of that bridge or perhaps the translations of the perceptions of our senses are greatly influenced by external factors. Like discussed before the choice we make in the situations we are in a influenced by the options presented to us, or what we hear, see are all influenced by what we know already or what we understand so far. To come to terms of why are sense are changing variables or unreliable at times, requires us to understand that everything we see is just a interaction of light and our eyes. Everything else is just a interpretations by the brain of this interaction.  Therefore during this interpretation of our perceptions the brain tends to rely on our past experiences, patterns and sequences to put together the world we live in. Therefore as a fact what you see is not what you believe but what you believe is what you see. some of the few problems that sense perception boils down to can perhaps be identified and realised, however knowing these problems does not make our senses any better and these are fundamental defects in our senses.

• Past experience - Past experience is rather relevant as the brain uses past experiences to prepare itself for future ones. It tells signals the body to predict danger or to convince us that orange juice is orange juice. A lot of life is based on past experiences and experiences to others. Therefore the brain tells us what to expect this based on past experience rather than what actually happens.

• Through social and cultural conditioning - We have multiple social and cultural aspects all around us and such thoughts and judgements often lead us to expect something that could possibly be wrong. The culture and social aspects much like past experiences have conditioned us to expect something when that is probably not the case.

• Through spatial familiarity - Our brain processes information to identify patterns and shapes which we already posses and ridged understanding over. This methodology of understanding and perceiving causes a loop in our sense that cause them to be unreliable and cause us to perceive differently. 

• Through our biological limitations - The human senses are limited to a certain degree of information at a time, and this is a factor that affects how much we know and the affects are perception of the world around us.

• Through existing learning structures - The way we perceive the world around us can be greatly influenced by an important conceptual alternative ways of knowing.

• Through seeing the in existing - The human eyes are capable of seeing optical illusions that cause the eyes to see what is not there and this further makes the senses unreliable. How are the human eyes able to see what is not there. 

• Through our dependence on language - The use of language around us vastly affects the way we perceive objects. The use of more positive words towards an objects tends to make it more attractive and more appealing to the people and therefore language plays a vital role in the way we perceive the world around us. 

• Through filtering - The human mind receives a lot more information than what is processed and the irrelevant information is filtered out causing the person to ideally focus on a particular bit of information. This affects our perception of the surroundings as the perception is generally limited to certain bits of information to maintain focus and enhance the work efficiency.

• Through self perception - How the human body thinks of itself will greatly affect the information taken by the person and this is relevant as this is different for person to person 

“All seeing is seeing-as… There is no ‘innocent eye’. In order for you to receive something you must add to your sense data; you must furnish an element of projection.” R. Abel. 
Tautology is the practise of re-emphasising the same point with the use of different or more complex words. Establishing an understanding of the limitations of our senses and understanding how we perceive the world around us differently; attempting to explain this quote will require one to implement tautology. The idea that people perceive information differently is widely acknowledged. There are some fact that we humans have kept general to all, such as gravity is 10 newtons, if you jump of a cliff you fall or there is oxygen in air (a more tok example can be that if you are nice to your tok teacher, you are sure to get chocolates). However more life based examples are always influenced by the people around us, the choice we are presented with and many more. There is no information that is not influenced and this is because of our brains mission to find patterns and rhythms in our lives. Therefore when we perceive something we use prior experience or knowledge to further improve the perception of the present. We use the past to make decisions and better perceive the future although they might not always be correct or useful at the particular place and time. Sometimes a quote just says it all and there is no better way of saying it.

Although the human senses do have certain limitations and are blinded by them, these limitations can indeed cause us to perceive the world differently; however our senses always brings about a sense of appreciation for the world we live in and that is elementary and essential. 

The Truman show

The Truman show was a wonderful movie made in the 1998. Now if you don't want to walk into spoilers please do go read the other wonderful posts or watch the movie in this link here: http://vodly.to/watch-1509-The-Truman-Show; and if you want to check out the review before you watch the movie then check the review here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120382/?ref_=nv_sr_1.  Now that you are fully loaded we can address the more TOK part of the movie. 

The movie showed the life insurance salesman/adjuster who discovers his entire life is actually a TV show. That the gist of the movie, the person realises that his life is a sequence of patterns and everything in his life is staged and set to make the show interesting. He realises certain things that make him question his life and that makes him want to travel to find the girl of his life. He eventually finds the way out of his world and possibly made it to the girl of his dream. Well thats all the retell, you could either have watched that or stayed here long enough for that short retell. 

When it comes to the the emotional reaction a viewer has to the movie, it was sort of based on that idea of control, of what you do in your life is controlled by someone. This idea has be shown in many movies such as "The adjustment bureau", "The hunger games",  "Death race", "Oblivion" and "Gamer"; these are some really good movies (review links below) that plays on the idea of control and this is really a factor that really causes a sense of uneasiness. We all have a feeling of freedom and we are proud to feel that way and the thought of you being controlled by someone causes a revolting feeling wanting you to gain that freedom of being a true individual. We as individuals have the right to freedom and the idea of being controlled or played with causes this sense of inferiority. The idea of people being controlled is a rather angering one and cause that need to be free.

The camera angles of the movie played an essential role in the plot of the story. In fact the whole plot structure of the movie was well thought out. The idea of spoon-feeding information about the story bit by bit and having the course of the story takes its path along that is a splendid way to keep the audience hooked and also to keep the movie more entertaining and to let the people who have no clue whats happening, whats happening. The camera angle essentially contributed to the idea that the protagonist of the show was actually in a tv show. It shows that the whole thing is a tv show and it shows the idea of the protagonist being watched all the time where ever he goes. 

There is that beautiful irony where the reporter says.“Thank you for coming today Christof, I know how much you value your privacy.”; and whats ironic is the fact that the director Christof isn't really there with the reporter and in fact the interview is happening over video call. This is really interesting and brings a sense of an introverted personality but also a sense of secretiveness. In terms of the real world this is probably seen in the case of top secret stuff where nothing is spoken of but a movie director taking that sense of privacy and secrecy is rather unusual. 

Taking another look at the end of the movie, although Christof was portrayed as the bad guy controlling the life of an individual Truman in order to make a profitable television show still stands, the probable other aspect could be that Christof was indeed a visionary who wanted the best for Truman in the reality that he was presented in. Christof realised that the world we live in is a world full of lies, deceit and with no more truth than the world Christof created for Truman (although Truman's whole world was a lie) but the idea is that Christof was indeed looking out for Truman and seeked what was best for Truman which also got around making him more profitable. We learn through our failures and that is what makes us succeed; Christof nullified that idea of failure for Truman and all actions that were made by truman where made to keep him in the path of success. Christof strayed Truman away from failure which makes him weak as only in our failures can we be truly strong. However Christof helped inspire and give hope to millions of people around the world by the means of his television show. He helped inspire people and helped them aspire for a better life. He used the life of Truman to help give hope to people and show that life can be worth living. An example of this can be seen when Truman was escaping, Christof challenged Truman and made his voyage a difficult one but Truman persisted and maintainted his will-sprit to succed and this showed the people that a person "will" to do something can never be crushed and if there is a will there is a way. Christof tried to show people an ideal world, a world which all the people could strive towards too. Christof indeed took more action in Truman's life to make it more meaningful, to make it better and to make him enjoy himself a lot more and this makes him more responsible that the people who ignorantly watch the show for their own entertainment and pleasure. Yes, Christof took active responsibility in making Truman's life a sort of Ethiopia where everything is good and green but that doesn't mean he is not in the wrong for controlling the life of Truman and deciding aspects of his life. 

There was an ethical issue the movie was trying to convey and it was probably the idea of controlling someones life. It is seen in the movie where truman's every decision were indirectly controlled through his friend or wife. As mentioned before, the idea of of controlling someones life is taking their freedom away from them. You rob them from the freedom of living their lives when they can travel, live and do whatever they want. The idea of controlling someones life to make money of is ethically wrong. Freedom of life is one of the fundamental things that should be given to man and one of the critical things a man can be robbed off. Robbing someone from the right to live their life with their freedom is blinding him from true reality. 

The Truman Show shockingly reveals to us the depths to which our society has sunk.  In realizing this, we are forced to examine ourselves as individuals to see if we are part of this declining mentality. As we go deeper, we are awakened to realize that it makes a scathing commentary on us as a society and our obsession with money, entertainment, and the lives of the rich and famous.  Going even deeper, at the core of The Truman Show, there is a message aimed at you, the individual.  We cannot help but examine ourselves as an individual contributor to our declining culture. The Truman Show not only questions the morals and of our society and media, but it also forces a face to face encounter with the fundamentals of our own ethics.  The media’s role in today's society has been has expanded to have a gigantic influence on us and has greatly affected our values.  The Truman Show questions these values of society: our disregard for privacy, the sacrifice of morals for money, the paparazzi, our obsession with celebrities’ lives, and the extent to which we will go for entertainment. The Truman Show is just such an example of this exploitation of lives exhibited for entertainment.

“We accept the reality which we are presented.”

It is indeed a true quote and people in connection to the real world do accept the reality which we are presented in. We live our lives as if it were our lives and we have no doubt that we might all be played on a tv show by some aliens. I always thought that my life was a story book that god read and i am just re-enacting it. Its a thought that came to me when I was young but the reason to believe that this world is not reality is hard to believe although it might not be. Its similar to the truman show where he thought his life was his life but his life was actually a tv show. We humans can't comprehend the extraordinary and tend to accept reality as it is. It is a rather interesting thought that we subconsciously accept the reality that we are in and do nothing to question it. As Albert Einstein said "Reality is just an illusion" and is mearly what we humans make it, although the reality we have made and set before us can indeed be a persistent reality that we have assumed to be reality. 

“Television, with insatiable hunger for material, has made celebrities into content.”-Roger Ebert, 1998, Chicago Sun-Times. Indeed one of the things that was shown towards the end of the movie is that people don't actually care about the protagonist, they just watched to show to see what happened. Television has made people want to watch it just to see what happens to the persons. People watch tv shows just to know what happens to the celebrities acting in it. Television is that idea of wanting to know about people's lives but in actual fact if something happened to the character people wouldn't actually kill their lives over it. Similar to the truman show the hunger games is a movie where the lives of people are played with in order to make views satisfied. Why do reality TV shows makes us viewers content and happy? 

Appendix 

The adjustment bureau : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1385826/

The hunger game : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1392170/

Death race : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0452608/

Oblivion : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1483013/

Gamer : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1034032/