Reality Versus Perception in the Kasdan Films, Grand Canyon and Mumford

Reality Versus Perception in the Kasdan Films, Grand Canyon and Mumford All of knowledge is founded on axioms: assumptions that are agreed upon for stability. However, since those axioms are assumptions and cannot be proven without a doubt, nothing ca truly be known with absolute certainly. Still, in order to carry on with life, assumptions have to be made. Knowing this, the task becomes making assumption that are more educated and, given the lack of certainty, ones that matter. Furthermore, the assumption of others can be examined more accurately with this knowledge in mind. The most important of these assumptions, and in many cases points of debate, is the nature of reality. The old world thought the matters of the spirit to be truly real, or ethereal, as opposed to the physical world. The modern period, on the other hand, held that sense perception was the only evidence that was concrete and that reality was only that which could be corroborated by sense perception. This gradual shift that occurred endeavored to transform humanity’s vi ew of reality from the ethereal to the physical. The fact of the matter, however, is that the modern period had no more indubitable evidence for believing in a physical reality than the people before it had for believing in an ethereal reality. As a result, the current time of postmodernism is fragmented in a disarray of those two realities and countless variations thereof. The world today is trying to figure out constantly what actual reality is, whether it truly is ethereal or physical. This trend can be observed in media to a large degree. The case here is that the Kasdan films Grand Canyon and Mumford are portraying this social struggle in the bifurcation of postmodernism.... ...lso that the reality of events throughout time is variable and relative. The nature of things commonly understood as good or bad are not necessary one or the other, but may change. Reality is a matter of perception. Whether reality is truly ethereal or actually physical in nature is determined, for the duration of life, by the living. Given this, it can also be conceived that no one knows the nature of what is happening to anyone as being positive or negative. No one even knows whether the nature of events is a constant factor, since finding that reality may be variable insinuates also that the nature of anything and everything may also be subject to change. So in truth, this inquisition, in some ways, is back at the starting point. However, there is an advantage in knowing what potential ignorance exists as opposed to being ignorant of that very ignorance.