Our Perceptions are just a Representation based on Disposition
Table of Contents
Justification 2: The constancy of our perceptions
The constancy of our perceptions makes us ascribe to them a perfect numerical identity even if:
- there are separated by very long period of time
- they only have one of the essential qualities of identity: invariableness.
Philosophers distinguish between sensory objects and perceptions which are co-existent and resembling.
- But most people cannot understand this.
People perceive only one being.
- They can never agree to a double existence and representation.
- They think that those sensations which enter their eye or ear are the true objects.
They cannot conceive that this pen represents another pen.
As a general rule, the ideas place the mind in one disposition causes those ideas to be confounded with each other.
The mind readily passes from one idea to the other.
- But it cannot perceive the change unless it gives its strict attention.
This is the source of the error why we assign an identity to our resembling perceptions.
To apply this general maxim, we must: first examine the mind’s disposition in viewing any object which preserves a perfect identity, and find some other object that is confounded with it, by causing a similar disposition.
When we perceive a thing that we assume has continued the same for some time, we:
- assume that the change was only in the time
- never think of new ideas of the object.
This saves the mind from exertion.
The passage from one moment to another is scarce felt.
It does not distinguish itself by a different perception or idea.
This perception or idea might require a different direction of the spirits for its conception.
What other objects, beside identical ones, can: put the mind in the same disposition, when the mind considers them, and cause the same uninterrupted passage of the imagination from one idea to another?
If we can find such objects, we may conclude from the foregoing principle that they are very naturally: confounded with identical ones, and taken for granted in most of our reasonings.
This question is very important, but it is not very difficult nor doubtful.
I answer that a succession of related objects:
- places the mind in this disposition, and
- is considered with the same smooth and uninterrupted progress of the imagination, in the same way that it considers the same invariable object.
The essence of relation is to:
- connect our ideas with each other, and
- to allow the mind to move from one idea to another that is related
Therefore, the passage between related ideas is so smooth and easy.
It produces little alteration on the mind.
It seems like the continuation of the same action.
The continuation of the same action is an effect of the continued view of the same object.
This is why we attribute sameness to every succession of related objects.
The thought slides along the succession with equal facility, as if it considered only one object.
It therefore confounds the succession with the identity.
We shall afterwards see many instances of this tendency of relation to make us ascribe an identity to different objects.
But we shall confine ourselves to the present subject.
There is such a constancy in almost all the impressions of the senses.
Their interruption: produces no alteration on them, and does not hinder them from returning the same in appearance and in situation as at their first existence.
I look at the furniture of my room.
I close my eyes for a second and then open my eyes.
I find the new perceptions perfectly resembling those which I had a second ago.
This resemblance is observed in 1,000 instances.
It naturally: connects together our ideas of these interrupted perceptions by the strongest relation, and conveys the mind with an easy transition from one to another.
The mind has almost the same disposition when it easily passes along the ideas of these different and interrupted perceptions and when it considers a constant and uninterrupted perception. Therefore, it is very natural for us to mistake the one for the other.
Footnote 9:
This reasoning is somewhat: abstruse, and difficult to be comprehended.
But this very difficulty can be converted into a proof of the reasoning.
There are 2 resemblances which contribute to our mistaking the succession of our interrupted perceptions as a single object:
- The resemblance of the perceptions
- The resemblance from a succession of resembling objects with that in an identical object
We tend to confound these resemblances with each other.
But let us keep them distinct.
The people who think that our resembling perceptions are one identity are unphilosophical.
- All of us have been unphilosophical at one time or other.*
Superphysics Note
Consequently, they:
- suppose their perceptions to be their only objects, and
- never think of a double existence of:
- internal and external
- representing and represented
We think that the image present to the senses is the real body.
We then ascribe a perfect identity to these interrupted images.
But the interruption of the appearance is contrary to the identity.
It naturally leads us to regard these resembling perceptions as different from each other.
We then find ourselves at a loss how to reconcile such opposite opinions.
The imagination’s smooth passage along the ideas of the resembling perceptions makes us ascribe to them a perfect identity.
Their interrupted appearance makes us consider them as so many resembling, but still distinct beings which appear at certain intervals.
The perplexity arising from this contradiction produces a propension to unite these broken appearances by the fiction of a continued existence.
This is part 3 of my hypothesis.