Can we Trust our Senses?
In a recent comment on an Amazon book review, regarding an ebook about sightings of apparent living pterosaurs, a skeptic said, “For my own purposes, I won’t even believe my own senses, knowing how fallible human perception is.” That skeptic failed to consider, however, the various depths of fallibility to which we mortals can fall. Perhaps the lowest depth is imagining what somebody else has experienced when we’ve never had a similar experience. Especially fallible is imagining something contrary to what an eyewitness has reported experiencing.
Of course it’s possible for one person to be closer to the truth while imagining something he did not experience, but the general rule is that persons who experience something are closer to the truth than somebody who imagines those persons misinterpreted their experiences.
That skeptic was even more blind that he was aware and suggested that a combination of lies and misidentifications should be given high priority in interpreting sighting descriptions from persons of differing backgrounds, differing cultures, and differing beliefs regarding the possibility of modern living pterosaurs. How much easier for that skeptic to cling to ideas to which he has been indoctrinated throughout his life!
Think about this: If each of us refuses to believe our own senses, what confidence can we have in imagining what others have sensed? To live in such folly, how ludicrous! How foolish for one person to place much confidence in his own imagination (of what a number of eyewitnesses reported) and dismiss the similarities of descriptions in those reports!
