Richard Robbin Analysis

Upon reading the assigned section, I found Richard Robbin’s views on human behavior to be incredibly enlightening. His discussion of human perception drove me into a deeper state of critical thought than I’ve experienced from an assigned reading. Due to the extreme variation in culture among groups of people, our perceptions of life will vary from person to person. Most humans share a common desire for necessities such as a source of food, water, and a permanent structure to occupy. Besides the basic requirements for survival and reproduction, many cultures view the world in vastly different ways. While analyzing the text, I found Robbin’s explanation of the second paradox of experience to be particularly interesting. The second paradox refers to the notion that every experience is unique.

Robbin’s description of the first paradox provided me with a foundation on how our senses can alter our experiences. This paradox explained that at any given moment, massive quantities of stimuli are “reaching out” to us all at once. Due to a human brain’s ability to only focus on a few stimuli at once, our senses are not bombarded by constant streams of these feelings. Since we can only focus on a limited number of sensations, we are often not experiencing all possible stimuli. I completely agree with Robbins that human beings can only focus on a finite number of stimuli at a given time. However, I believe that the exact number of stimuli varies from person to person based on their cognitive ability. Another aspect within the reading that pertained to the distortion of reality was the author’s explanation of the artist and the rhinoceros. The sketch of the rhino was inaccurate due to the distortion of the rhino’s skin. This example provided by Robbins serves as an excellent example of how we draw on our past experiences to interpret new