Sara Rice: 1/16/24 lecture reflection- preconceived notions

 During this lecture we discussed an example of how the interpretations of things are different than what we consciously know. In the class example, this was depicted as someone blindly sticking their hand into a bowl with a preconceived notion of what they were supposed to be feeling. However, what was actually felt was through the senses and relied more on material “evidence” than what our brain interprets. After this lecture I reflected on that, and took it to a broader perspective on beauty as a whole. In general we have a lot of preconceived notions, like what a typical tree or flower looks like. I further realized that we have preconceived notions about what is beautiful and what is not. For example, when thinking of a typical sunset we do not think of sunsets during cloudy days or sunsets that don’t have a beautiful gradient of color. Whether we realize it or not we have preconceived notions about all that is beautiful in life, and when using our senses things may not always seem as beautiful as they are in our own heads. Although beauty is subjective, we already have our own concept of what is beautiful to us and what is not and it is often hard to change those perceptions without truly “feeling” or “experiencing” something different. 


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