Sense Knowledge as the Beginning of the Process of Knowing
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Aristotle said that nothing comes into the intellect without passing through the senses. In which I think is very agreeable. It implies that everything we learn, we learn from experience, experience from the interactions of our senses and sensible objects and through dialogues with other people. It is the first step of the very act of knowing.
When we have experienced something we have a memory of it in our mind. It’s kind of like having a journal in which our experiences are written down according to its importance or significance in our lives. We still remember our very embarrassing moments and flushes out of embarrassment as we recall it. Our happy moments with loved ones and the joy of reminiscing it draws smiles in our faces. Even though a long time has passed, the slight recollection of an unlikely event stirs our emotions. Here’s an experiment. Picture an image of a sunset. As it slowly descends over the vast horizon, its shades turn from yellow, orange and red. Notice that even if you’re not actually seeing the sunset you have a mental picture of it. And this is primarily because of the fact that you have already experienced it. You might have seen it in television or in a photograph.
Many storybooks nowadays and even before offered stories involving mythological creatures like mermaids, unicorns, dragons and even talking animals. It’s very entertaining of course, who wouldn’t love to imagine living in a world full of wonder, magic and adventure? Of course those stories are all just imaginations and works of fiction. But what drives us to imagine these things that are non-existent? What makes us picture such things without even experiencing it first hand? Well, one explanation is that the mind has the ability to associate or connect things using the data given by the senses. When we talk about a mermaid, it is described as half human...