Nature of Logic and Perception

Nature of Logic and Perception

To be able to discuss what the nature of logic and perception is, we need to understand what logic and perception are. Logic is the study of the methods and principles used in distinguishing correct from incorrect reasoning (dictionary.com). This means that using logic is the ability to distinguish good arguments from poor ones, and to justify those arguments with truth through an unbiased view. This, I believe, is almost impossible because every individual possesses some form of stereotype or other perceptual block that inhibits certain facts from being revealed.

Perception is, according to dictionary.com, "the insight, intuition, or knowledge gained by perceiving." Thus a perceptual block would be a malfunction in and individuals mind, which causes him or her to perceive things the way that the individual has learned it. The perceptual block is caused by the mind's tendency to jump to a conclusion too rapidly. Thus, by helping a person to overcome perceptual blocks you are, in a sense, encouraging their ability to change both perspective and perception.

It is difficult to change a person's perception on things. Especially if the way they think is due largely on the way the individual was raised. When we look at something, what we see appears to be all there is. However, perception is not limited to the physical act of seeing. It encompasses all the senses that are used to gather facts or observations. This is seen when we are given a new problem to work on, with incomplete facts. We jump to a conclusion on the basis of the facts we have, and then put our minds to work trying to justify that conclusion. Actually we frequently block ourselves from even solving the problem satisfactorily because the jump to the conclusion that was made carried us to the wrong conclusion.

I saw this in myself one day, doing something I have done countless times before. Some information was brought to the office, which came up fairly frequently. I took my normal stand on the incident and continued to do it the way that it had been done before. I thought that since this was the way I was shown it must be the easiest and most efficient way to complete the task. Even though the suggestion made to do the task differently may have worked better, I still refused to conform. I closed my mind to valid suggestions because I felt that I had a valid stand on why it should be done "my" way. It was brought to my attention and when I actually took a step back to analyze myself, did I understand. Seeing how I reacted towards this situation I began to think of incidents where it may have occurred in the past. I saw that I had been taking a negative attitude toward everything that went outside