“We see and understand things not as they are but as we are” This claim shows the great influence of our beliefs and experiences on our view of the world. This is because our beliefs and experiences, the things that make us who we are, are an influence on our ways of knowing. Since our ways of knowing are the ways that we form our views and understanding of the world our beliefs and experience indirectly affect our view and understanding. Emotion and Sense perception, in particular, are greatly effected.

    For a greater understanding of this concept we should consider this statement “The needs of the many outway the need of the few”(Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan). Assuming that you believe people to be equal this statement is logical. The combined needs of a large number of people must be larger than the needs of a smaller amount of people. Now consider this idea “that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not” (John 11:49-50).If you accept the logic of the first sentence then this situation is also logical. The needs of the many, or the nation to live should outway the needs of the few or in this cases the one to live. However a dilemma occurs when we look at this situation using our emotion rather than our reason. Our emotion cause us to believe that people needs no matter how few should not be ignored and that the majority should not always have its way. Also it causes us to ask in the case of the second quote “How should this person be chosen and who is this “man”" because who ever is chosen to die is being sentenced to death. It also causes us to question whether or not every bodies needs should be considered “equal”.” What if the “few” was a few innocent children and the many were old serial killers? “The way that you answer these questions can greatly affected by our emotions and beliefs. If we view life scared then we may greatly frown upon sentencing somebody to death. If we believe that the elders should sacrifice themselves to protect the young then the old serial killers should die not the child. If we believe that the innocent and pure are more important then those who have sinned then you could consider the child’s life to be more important than those of the two serial killers. If you do not hold these views however you many consider the opposites to be true. As you can see our emotions and beliefs have a great influence on how we view each of the elements involved.

    Due to our beliefs on when situations looked at from both emotion and reason we can come to two different conclusions as to whether or not they are “right” .These two conclusions can contradict each other and create a dilemma about what to believe. Only one of these conclusions can be “right” and the other must be “wrong” since both cannot be “right”. This dilemma in our how to see and understand the situation is caused by a personal dilemma about whether or not we should trust our reason or emotion. This dilemma on how we see and understand things is different form how that situation is because situation must be definite. The situation cannot be both “right” and “wrong”. Our understanding is then the same as “we are” because we do not know whether to trust our reason or emotion.

    The problem with the example is that “right” and “wrong” are artificially created concepts to describe our emotional beliefs that do not really exist. I don’t mean this in the sense that true and false do not exist but the ideas of morally right and wrong. The statement that “Killing is wrong” really means that we believe that killing is not the “wrong”. Wrong is something that only exists because of our beliefs it is not and inherent property of statements. So something is really neither “right” or “wrong” the question is whether  or not we believe it to fit our abstract concept of being “right”.

    Not only our beliefs make use who we are but so do our experiences. Our experiences greatly influence how we understand the knowledge we receive from our sense. For example objects such as this paper you are reading are mostly empty space. This is because the atoms that make up this paper are they themselves made up of mostly empty space. However our normally experiences with paper do not support this face. The paper does not appear to have holes and it does no feel like it has them either. Their fore our experience with this paper would lead us to believe that the paper its self is solid. Our understanding of the paper would be as solid. However this would not be coherent with how the paper actually is. How we see that paper and understand it due to our sense perception is similar to how we ourselves are because it is on a bigger level than the subatomic level like us ourselves. However if we have had other experiences we can change our view of the paper. If we have done tests on the paper and have learn about the nature of atoms than our understanding changes.

    If our understanding of thing’s can change when the things itself does not change then the understanding cannot correlate with how really things are. Since our understanding and perceptions change according to our beliefs and experiences, the things that make us who we are, then they must have some correlation to how we ourselves are.