Where Knowledge Rules

Entertainment:

Movies

Get a Widget for this title

Movie analysis: The Truman Show and our perception of reality

be if applied beyond its scope, like in the real world.

I have a conclusion that I think might just interest you.

From what I have discussed so far, does it not ultimately suggest that our world's truth may just be a grand illusion? The exact people who pass on false information to us may in fact simply be oblivious to the fact that they are passing down incorrect information. Indeed, they simply continue to do so for everything as taught to them by their seniors, the seniors of their seniors and ad infinitum.

This is not a speculative impossibility. For centuries, "The Earth is flat" was common knowledge, passed down generations down generations. Do you think they would have pronounced themselves guilty for lying?

Perception is that which leads to behavioural conditioning, while being a cause for it. For instance, Truman is water-phobic as he has a repeated negative reinforcement to make him avoid the waters e.g. the fierce dog barking at him near the pier; his father drowning in a stormy sea. He perceives all these to be bad, as we would do too.

In real life, there are obvious examples of the role of conditioning in perception. We know, of the danger of fire, and how it hurts because of an experience when we were children where we played with fire. This is as such, a very common example. This, however, lies on the basis of inductive reasoning based on affairs of vague probabilities. The connections formed with the association of an object e.g. pain from touching a fire; death of someone in a fire, are what ultimately forms the probabilities for the reasoning to work. Take, for instance, if a child has fire removed from his life since birth, never even having seen, let alone touch it once. Would the child then have the knowledge, of the displeasure of fire?

Such, of course, limits our knowledge by the scope of our perception. What goes into the eventual feed of premises for knowledge from deductive reasoning to formulate comes from this. Perception is what fuels truth. Without perception, there can thus be no truth.

We would say that, with correctly-associated perceptions e.g. the fire is hot, there would in turn be absolutely-correct truths. In comparison, a wrongly-associated perception e.g. Truman believes the water to hold nothing but bad experiences, forms illusions, meant as truths. However, we must at the same time be aware, that not everyone totally agrees that fires are hot. Some, have learnt to control pain such that they have forgotten the handshake of


Below are the top articles rated and ranked by Helium members on:

Movie analysis: The Truman Show and our perception of reality

  • 1 of 7

    by R. Cunningham

    The film The Truman Show questions our perception of reality and closely parallels Plato's famous parable of the same topic,

    read more

  • 2 of 7

    by Kendall Blair

    WHO'S WATCHING YOU?

    While applying research towards video cameras, I came upon a shocking disturbance. If you simply type

    read more

  • 3 of 7

    by Ming Wei

    The Truman show is an intellectual movie. I don't want to say something about my feelings. I will create the monologue for

    read more

  • 4 of 7

    by American Citizen

    Reality is a shared hallucination, so opens Disinformation's "You Are Still Being Lied To" [1]. The essay makes a compelling

    read more

  • 5 of 7

    by Christianna Garrett-Martin

    -THE TRUMAN SHOW-




    Starring Jim Carrey 'The Truman Show' was released in 1998. Directed by Peter Weir and written by Andrew

    read more

View All Articles on:
Movie analysis: The Truman Show and our perception of reality

Add your voice

Know something about Movie analysis: The Truman Show and our perception of reality?
We want to hear your view. Write_penWrite now!

Helium Debate

Cast your vote!

Should old TV shows be made into movies?

Click for your side.

91818

Featured Partner

Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment (FREE)

FREE advances conservation and environmental values by applying modern science and America's founding ideals to polic...more

What is Helium? | Buy Web Content | Contact Us | Privacy | User agreement | DMCA | User Tools | Help | Community | Helium’s Official Blog | Link to Helium

Helium, Inc.
200 Brickstone Square Andover, MA 01810 USA