The World of Perception

After I finished reading the massive volume of Phenomenology of Perception, I became more interested in reading other books on similar topics written by the same author. The World of Perception is another book I chose to read presuming this topic closely related to the Phenomenology of Perception. This book cannot be found at any bookstore in Medan, neither in Bandung. I could order the book from online book store like amazon.com, but the shipment cost is much more expensive than the book itself, so I asked my younger sister Erna who lives abroad to buy one for me.

Unlike Phenomenology of Perception which is of 539 pages, The World of Perception is much briefer – only 125 pages including index. This is a collection of seven lectures for a series of radio broadcast which were delivered by him in 1948. Those seven lectures are: 1. The World of Perception and the World of Science, 2. Exploring the World of Perception: Space 3. Exploring the World of Perception: Sensory Objects, 4. Exploring the World of Perception: Animal Life, 5. Man Seen from the Outside, 6. Art and the World of Perception, 7. Classical Modern World.

In this book, Merleau Ponti suggests us to ‘rediscover’ the perceived world with the help of modern art and philosophy. In relation to Science, he seeks to reverse application of the reality distinction to the relationship between the perceived world and the world of science. He views the world of science as just an ‘approximation expressions’ of physical events i.e. an appearance, unlike realists views that the perceived world is the real world. In the second part about the perceived world and discussion of space, a basic concept is a contrast between the classical conception of space and that which actually informs the world as we perceive it. The classical conception of space is that of Newtonian physics which relies on a conception of ‘absolute’ space within physical objects have an absolute time and can move without any alteration of their physical properties. Merleau Ponti associates this conception of space with that found in classical art, the kind of painting whereby objects are depicted in accordance with the perspective they would present when viewed under a gaze directed at a point of the horizon, which remain at a distance and do not involve the viewer. His general point is the space of the perceived world is not the unique space of a ‘disembodied intellect’, but, like physical space, has different regions which are structured by our expectations concerning the things which we find in them.

I enjoy reading this book because the way he discuss each theme is much more simply and systematically so it is much easier for me to get the points, compared to the Phenomenology of Perception in which his discussion comprise a lot psychological and philosophical argumentation. I was just a bit confused in reading part three which is about sensory objects. It is not quite easy for me to figure out the idea behind how he relates the sensory object with this perceived world. In the two lasts chapter of the book it is deeply discussed that the world of perception consists not just of all natural objects but also paintings, pieces of music, books and all the ‘world of culture’. He brings readers to rediscover a way of looking at works of arts, language and culture, with respect to their autonomy and their original richness.
For the one like me, with limited philosophical background knowledge (which is merely about philosophy of science), this phenomenological philosophy is interesting. It is a matter of seeing the world from another point of view, which includes art, painting and psychology. For those with no philosophical background but interested to read this book, I would recommend to read the book about French Philosophy and German Philosophy beforehand. It is better to know the author’s biography and background knowledge prior to reading his/her articles so we could follow the authors’ way of thinking. This is helpful to easily get what points the author wants the readers to get.

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Phenomenology of Perception

The word “perception” has simply been known as something related to someone’s view, judgment and assessment on something. The view may be influenced by one’s experience, culture, belief or knowledge. It is clear that ‘perception’ may change due to age, since the longer we live the more experience and wisdom we get. However, perception is not simply the above matter. It can also be viewed from many different angles. I have been interested in knowing more about perception and how this world is perceived from the spectacle of phenomenologist. To get that, I read the book titled Phenomenology of Perception written by French philosopher, Maurice Merleau Ponti who introduced phenomenological thought to France.

In this book, Merleau-Ponty shows how basic features of human experience, such as the perception of objects as independent of us, space and time, and rationality are all inseparable from the structure of the human body. Beginning with things as they show themselves in perception, he discovers that things do not simply impose themselves on consciousness as atomistic sense impressions, nor do we construct things in our minds. Rather, things as we experience them are discovered through a subject-object dialogue. He combined a new way of thinking about the basic structure of human life with reflections on art, literature and politics. In order to understand how Merleau-Ponty understands this subject-object dialogue, we first need to understand a new idea, something which Merleau-Ponty brought to phenomenology: the idea of the lived body. This is a central theme of Phenomenology of Perception.

His discussion of the intentionality of consciousness - especially of the ways in which things are presented in perception – and of the role of the body in perception are recognized as important contribution to the understanding of this topics.
“…. one of the great achievements of modern art and philosophy … has been to allow us to rediscover the world in which we live, yet which we are always prone to forget “.
This world which we are to rediscover is ‘the world of perception’, which is the world as we perceive it, ‘the perceived world’ as it is often called. This book is to explore this perceived world, in order to enable readers to ‘rediscover’ it for themselves.

I have been slowly re-reading every chapter of this book over the past 2 months, even though on some subchapter I just picked up part that I like. It took ages for me to finish reading this massive volume book because I often had to re-read many part carefully to get the points. The language is not quite simple as I found some single words which I could not find in the common dictionary neither in thesaurus, though I eventually found the words in ‘Illustrated Dictionary of Psychology’ compiled and edited by Louis Smith, that I fortunately own. A tough book to get through but one of the most important in philosophy. Even if you just read the preface and introduction, the massive volume of this book will blow your mind. I got many new knowledge about other philosophers of various ‘ism’ i.e. positivism, rationalism, existentialism, idealism, skepticism etc. since he always discuss comparison between his view and other philosophers’ view on the same objects, followed by dense analysis from his sight. At least I got the better idea of the basic different conceptual philosophy between German philosophers and French philosophers in general. I may re read this book some other time. To me this book is a brain food that is worthwhile.

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Flood in Tebing Tinggi

On the way back to Medan, about 1 hour left before we reached Medan, we passed by Tebingtinggi, a small city where the majority of residents is Melayu. Almost all building is painted in green and yellow, traditional colors of Melayu. The street was so deserted until we were trapped by traffic jam in Tebingtinggi.

We curiously wondered about what is happening since as many times we have passed by this street, we have never ever faced such traffic jam before. As we moved straight ahead we saw the street was wet and the water seemed to become higher covering the street. It not raining when we passed by the flood, but it was very heavy rain last night.








I was a bit anxious to get trapped in the flood and we could not continue back to Medan. Luckily we were on a big high wheeled car Grand Vitara so the car could pass the flood without being stuck and the water did not get into the machine. We pass the flood street for 30 minutes. What a distressed trip passing by the flood street.

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Blocked by Landslide

The first visit to Tampahan in 2009. We went to Tampahan, my late parents in law's home village in 4 January 2009. We spent only one night there, just to see the house, visit the cemetery of my parents in law and to greet the elder who take care of the house and the cemetery. In the morning of 5 January we were ready for going back to Medan. Before departing, as usual we crossed the road off to say goodbye to ompungboru, a younger sister of my husband’s late grand mother. Somebody told that there has been a landslide between Parapat and Siantar in the midnight, but the street was completely cleared already last night by the authority according to them to ensure us to not worry about the trip back to Medan.

It is the last day of long vacation, and so many people spent their holiday in Parapat will be back to Medan at least after breakfast. Avoiding traffic jam, we decided to depart early in the morning. The street was so deserted, so my husband drove the car slowly and relaxed. I tried to call the police at Parapat to make sure about the landslide, but the phone was always engaged. So we stopped by at Singgalang restaurant for a while to asked somebody there. A restaurant owner who is so kind told us that the street is cleaned already. We went off continue heading to Medan. Only 20 minutes from Parapat we were stopped by police men and we saw tractors pulling some rocks lying on the middle of the street. There were still rocks remain on the street. The rocks fell down from the street side hill.





The location where it happened is called Batuloting, means fire rocks. The rocks' friction will make fire. I saw the workers burning the rocks whenever the rocks are too heavy to be tilted up and to pull away. There are 3 cars prior to our car and many cars made a long queue behind us. The street is only passable for one car, so the policemen organized the cars to pass by the street in turn. The cars headed to Parapat were the first turn to pass by, and then after around 30 minutes waiting it’s our turn to head for Medan.








That was the very first time for me to see from a short distance how big rocks from the hill lying on the street. I can’t imagine what will happen when this rock falling down on the passing cars underneath. Luckily we only had to wait for around 30 minutes for the tractors to remove the rocks.

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Farewell 2008, Welcome 2009

I was just back in Medan 2 days ago after together with all family member I spent 8 days of Christmas vacation at my parent’s house in Bandung. Actually my daughters wished us to stay longer in order they can celebrate a new year together with us, but my husband prefered to leave the outgoing year 2008 and to enter the incoming year 2009 at our own home in Medan

There are new year greetings from family, friends and relatives I got during these two days at my mobile phone through short message service, through email and on my wall at Face Book. Here are some of the greetings which to me are impressed and touched.

When the sky breaks into a beautiful sunrise, may God open the heaven to shower us with lots of love, joy, peace, happiness and prosperity in the future.

Ketika Tuhan membuka jendela surga, Dia melihatku dan bertanya “Apa permintaanmu anakKu?” Aku minta, Bapa jaga dan cintai keluarga yang membaca sms ini selamanya. Berikan mereka kesehatan yang prima dan hati yang penuh sukacita serta hasil usaha yang penuh kesuksesan.

Semoga akhir tahun ini menjadi awal yang membahagiakan untuk tahun 2009 yang lebih baik bagi kita semua.
Wish the end of this year is the beginning of happiness in the year 2009 which is a better year for all of us.

I wish you all the gift of : 356 days of Love, 8760 hours of Happiness, 525600 minutes of Peace, 31536000 seconds of Prosperity
Day by day was going on, and now the new day on a new year was coming. Let the day brings us the new life, new hope and new dream.
Hidup ini hanya sebentar. Sebentar senang, sebentar sedih, sebentar marah, sebentar ketawa, sebentar berduit, sebentar bokek, sebentar lagi . . . . TAHUN BARU !!!

Yesterday is history, today is a gift, tomorrow is a hope. May our Lord Jesus Christ give you happiness and bless.

Jika diibaratan langit itu adalah kertas dan lautan adalah tinta, maka langit dan air laut tak akan cukup menulis kasih Yesus kepada kita. Walau langkah tak bertemu, tangan tak berjabat, ucapan tak terdengar namun ijinkanlah hati memohon maaf yang sebesar-besarnya.

Baik buruknya di tahun 2008 menjadi tolok ukur untuk menghadapi tahun baru 2009. Selamat Tahun Baru 2009.

Tak henti bertahan, tak henti berkreasi, tak henti untuk berbuat yang terbaik. Semoga Tuhan memberi kesempatan kepada kita untuk mampu melakukannya.
Tak selamanya hati seputih awan, tak selamanya jiwa sebening embun. Apabila mulut salah berucap, sikap dan tangan salah berbuat, terimalah maaf walau tangan tak sempat berjabat.

All those sentences are closed with a "Happy New Year" greeting.

Farewell 2008, welcome 2009.
To the world, to my country, to all my friends, to the whole family and relatives, and to all visitor of this blog with all best wishes I would greet you

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2009

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Heartbreaking Tsunami

In about more than 2 weeks from now, the 26 December 2008, will be the 4th year after tsunami destroyed Aceh, Nias and Padang. It means the organizations for the humanity, mostly non government organizations work for humanity including the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the destroyed area will end in December 2009. The effects caused by this 2 days natural disaster needs at least 5 years for reconstruction and rehabilitations on physical facilities and infrastructure. The trauma of some victims may need longer time to be healed. The lost of hundred thousands life can not be replaced.

image by global picture

Everybody does hope tsunami will not happen again. The memories of how this tsunami killed people, separated parents from their children, destroyed future of some people remains heartbreaking.

the picture shows how tsunami destroyed land and killed people

Of course as faithful person we always believe and leave anything happen to Him, the almighty God. Many people believe it as their destiny, their fate, which is already written. However, faith solely without praising Him through our good attitude does not guarantee this natural disaster stop to happen.

there is no bufferzone to protect the area

Tsunami is just one of the natural phenomenas that can not be avoided. What we, as the residents of the earth can do is to minimize the negative effects on human, on all the living creatures and the land. If only the people in the destroyed area had maintained the mangrove along the beach for instance, the destroyed area might not be very large. What we can do in order to minimize the victims of natural disaster is to conserve and maintain the nature. The earth has been created in a balanced system which has mutual relationship among each diverse component. With the effort to keep the nature maintained, at least to not do any activities that may damage the nature, will hopefully minimize the victims whenever natural disaster happen.

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Merleau-Ponti

I am currently reading Phenomenology of Perception, philosophical thought written by Merleau Ponti.Before going far through the readings, I usually read autobiography of the author just to get the idea about on what track the discussion will be. I have heard about Greece philosopher such as Plato, Socrates etc. as well as German philosophers since I was at High School when I learned physics and science. Most of them are positivists and rationalists. I have heard about Sartre and other French philosophers as well. This time I read a book of French phenomenologist, monsieur Maurice Merleau Ponti.

Merleau Ponti is a French philosopher who introduced phenomenological thought to France. He combined a new way of thinking about the basic structure of human life with reflections on art, literature and politics. Grew up as a French, he spent most of his childhood in Paris with his brothers, sisters, and his widowed mother. He devotes most of his writings to explorations of this perceived world, in order to enable reader to ‘rediscover’ it for him/herself. His background knowledge which was psychology influenced him in discovering this perceived world from the point of view of a psychologist. This can be seen from his dissertation “Structure of Behavior”, a critical survey of psychological theory with special emphasis on Gestalt theory, inspired him to work on phenomenology. He is one of a few modern phenomenologist in the world. His first thesis in philosophy is Phenomenology of Perception which was first published in 1945. His other famous published articles on philosophy are: ‘The World of Perception’ (1948), ‘Sense and Nonsense’ (1948), ‘An Adventure of Dialectic’ (1955) and ‘Signs’ (1960). ‘Visible and Invisible’ (1964)

Unlike logical positivist philosopher of the 1930’s who affirmed the ‘verification principle’ that the meaning of a proposition given by its method of verification, i.e. by a way in which its truth or falsity can be settled on the basis of observation, Merleau Ponti rejects the emphasis solely on ‘scientific’ observation as well as the forms of empiricism which aim to restrict or reduce the contents of thought to possible contents of experience. Attempted to overcome the problems of empiricism and rationalism in the Cartesian tradition of modern philosophy, he takes that the relationship between perception and all other modes of thought, including science as one of foundation which involves a kind of rootedness that does not restrict the capacity for more sophisticated articulations of experience in the light of deeper understanding of the world. During the German occupation of France, he joined Jean-Paul Sartre the writer of “Being and Nothingness” to constitute an intellectual resistant movement (Socialism and Freedom). The experience of the German occupation forced him to think much harder about politics than he had previously done.

After his death (1961), his former students somewhere else, especially in United States preserved his reputation and ensured the translation into English of all his major works. His discussion of the ‘intentionality’ of consciousness, especially the way in which things are presented in perception, and the role of the body in perception are recognized as important contributions to the understanding of the phenomenology of perception.

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A Village Lack of Youngster

One of the things I have always concerned about every time I visit villages in Tapanuli Utara is its lack of youngster. Tapanuli Utara is located at the southern part of North Sumatera. Youngsters here are young adults. The scene seen are elderly or young children working at rice field, shepherding sheep and buffalo, or relaxing in the coffee shop. It seems that no youngster remains living in the village.

Most probably all youngsters has been moved to the city for education or earn money. In general, the people from Tapanuli Utara Bataknese strongly hold their principle of life that they must send their children/descendants to school. The awareness that education is the main road to a better future is so strong among Bataknese. To get their children educated is a pride and is of family main target. No matter how poor the family is, they will do anything to send their children to school. Their relatives usually help each other to support one’s family in making this possible. The support could be financial, material or providing facility. Parents would do anything, borrow money, sell their field, sell their property, work harder, etc. for sending their children to a good school. The success of a family is measured by the level of education the family can afford for their children. These matters encourage parents to send their children to get the good education in the big city. This mainly happens to the youth at the time they have to continue their study to a higher level or university. So, all youngsters of villagers will be sent to the big city to attend college or university. The problem is after completing their study at university, these graduated youngsters usually find a job in the city as well, to get well paid of course. Again, no youths will back to their village and settle their life there. Unless the local authority develops economic activities in a village - for the youth particularly, the village will remain lack of youngsters.

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A Tomb at the House Yard

It has been more than 15 years since I have been living in Medan. At least once in every year, most often on Easter holiday, I and my family used to visit a village of Tampahan, about 11 km further from Balige, the capital of Toba Samosir district. It takes about 5 hours drive from Medan to Tampahan.

There is a house of my husband’s late grannies located uphill off the road, facing the street of inter province. The cemetery, - I prefer to say a tomb - of my late parents in law is located at the right side yard of the house.
It is common for the people of North Tapanuli to bury down the corpse of family member at their house yard or their private yard somewhere else within the village. They assume they have the right to reserve part of their own house yard for the burial ground or cemetery of the family member when passed away. It is usually at either the front or side yard, but not at back yard, as to honor the soul of the person being buried there. There are still a lot of Bataknese people who prefer to bury the corpse of their parents or grandparents especially of the aged ones at the land of their parent home village. Even if they have to take the corpse across the ocean, they would do it.

The tombs of King Sidabutar

and his family at Samosir island

Cemetery of Nommensen and his family.

Nommensen is a missionary from
Germany who introduced
Christianity to the people

of north Tapanuli in the 19th century

There are many reasons to do so. It can be a wish or request from their parents or grannies when being alive, to ensure that the cemetery will be cared by a member of their family living in the village or at least by someone they may hire. Another reason is as a way for their descendants come to visit their fore father home village. This is what was requested by my father in law before he departed. He was a former member of police officer, and he has the facility to be buried in National Cemetery, but long time before his death, he told his wishes to his sons that his corpse is to be buried at his parents’ home village.

The tombs of my father's grannies

at Butar - Siborong-borong
which is surrounded by rice fields

The tomb of Siahaan's (my husband's clan)
forefather - Somba Debata in Balige

For current generation living in a city, taking corpse of the family member to the village is not practical, wasting time and costs a lot. They don’t care too much about where to be buried when died. However, as a matter of fact, to buy or even to rent the small burial ground at local cemetery costs a lot. The family of the departed has to pay a lot besides must pay for the rent every year including taxes.

Last month when a father of my friend passed away, the family paid 11 million rupiah (=USD11,000) for 2x1.5 square meter of land for burial ground of the death. That is at Simalingkar, which has been the second best cemetery in Medan in this few years. The best one is at Taman Eden, which cost more expensive, 25 million rupiah (=USD 25,000) per corpse to be buried there. This makes the people of Tapanuli Utara, particularly who live in North Sumatera choose to utilize the land at their father home village as burial ground for the family member. So on the way back to Medan from north Tapanuli, it is a common view to see ambulance delivering corpse to certain village at north Tapanuli followed by family of the departed.

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Education of Homeless

Poverty, economic condition in which people lack sufficient income to obtain certain minimal levels of health services, food, housing, clothing, and education generally recognized as necessary to ensure an adequate standard of living. What is considered adequate, however, depends on the average standard of living in a particular society. People without access to education or health services should be considered poor even if they have adequate food. One of the main sources of poverty is lack of educational opportunity.

To break the cycle of poverty in their family, the children must properly be educated. Being aware of this, the government of my country opens an opportunity for all children to have free primary education. The government has put education as compulsory and in state schools is free. Primary education lasts six years. There is no tuition fee; most text book is subsidized by government, and the children can borrow text books from school library. Its aim is to give the children opportunity for a better future and hence to reduce the amount of people living in poverty in the future.

In fact, there are still a lot of children hanging on the road at school time. Some of them stand as beggars, some others sell newspapers on the street, work as street-singers etc. There are many reasons for these children choosing to leave school. As a part of poverty, one of the reasons is their being homeless. A large percentage of the poor people are homeless. A big number of families in a poor live in houses that are literally made out of other people’s rubbish. They rig up some old corrugated iron, some plastic sheeting – and that’s home. The whole families live in just one or two rooms. There is no privacy. There is no indoor toilet either. The whole families often have to eat, work and sleep in the same room. Poverty and bad housing is a problem for the children.


There are lots children live in homes which are on or below the poverty line. Parents are often put under great stress as a result of poverty and unemployment. This can make home life very difficult and full of tension from time to time. Homelessness is just as hard on kids as it is on adults. As a consequence, the children’s education, if in fact they are in school at all, suffers severely. As a result, children often suffer.

School age children indeed spend a lot of time in school. But after school, they come home to do their homework and in school holidays they also stay at home. Besides, school is not the only place where children learn things. In many ways, home is a more important place for learning and developing, where children find out many vital things about themselves. Homeless youth become heavily concerned with stress regarding such issues as staying healthy and enduring small living spaces. They become acutely aware of their basic physiological and safety needs. With all these things going on in these students’ lives, we can not expect them to achieve to the same level as other more advantaged students.

There are major problems with the education of homeless youth today. Besides free education, there is a big homework : How to help homeless people can leave in a house.

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