In the dialogue Phaedo Socrates denies that the senses are a good source for knowledge. It is "in thought, then, if at all, something of the realities becomes clear" (Phaedo, 65b). Certain kinds of knowledge, like "absolute justice," "absolute beauty," and "goodness" can not be received by the bodily senses, but they can be by one who "prepares himself most carefully to understand the true essence of each thing" (Phaedo, 65e). It is through intellectual activity (gnosis, dialectic reason, and remembrance) that one can come to grasp such concepts and gain an insight on the truth. Senses themselves are a distraction; they limit one's intellectual activity and the man who focuses on truth, Socrates states would "remove himself, so far as possible, from eyes and ears, and in a word, from his whole body, because he feels that its companionship disturbs the soul and hinders it from attaining truth and wisdom" (Phaedo, 66a). Senses themselves break up the concentration of the one who is trying to attain truth; the body demands attention through sensual data; but more then that, the senses themselves break up the concentration because they are "disturbing us with noise and confusion" (Phaedo, 66d).
    Senses hinder a man from perceiving the truth: it can be said that the senses bring any man seeking truth away from it while often providing a false sense of security and illusion to thinking one can attain truth through them. They seem to indicate the surroundings; it is not certain that these surroundings as they are perceived have any actuality. Indeed, senses have often been known to provide inaccurate information about one's surroundings and confuse the man who relies in them. According to Plato, relying upon sensory input ultimately brings a man away from searching the realm of thought, whether or not the sensory data is real or illusionary: but there is a great possibility of deception, while with the realm of thought, truths can be grasped without having to rely upon inaccurate perceptions. It is only through intellection that a man can make claims about truth.
    To indicate how the senses can be deceptive, I will indicate two ways that sensory input can be said to lead man into falsehood: with the multitude of sensory input that a man receives, he is seen to be boggled down and unable to use his mind for the search of knowledge, and sensory data confuses the man because it brings contradictory information about the nature of things. Socrates stresses in the Phaedo that the more a man tries to distance his "soul" or psyche from the bodily senses, the more he will be able to contemplate reality. This area of knowledge, which is indeed the most important, will not be examined here. Instead, I will focus on the second type of deception.
    That the senses confuse men by bringing forth a perceived reality which is different than to reality itself, can be seen by many examples in the physical world. When one looks at an object, say a stick which is placed halfway into the water, the water makes the stick look like it is bent. Mirages, for example as seen in the desert, are quite common misperceptions that a man can have. Many people have the ability to mimic the voices of other people, and often use it to make money entertaining the public by their use of this ability. The sense of smell and taste are often affected by a cold. Man's senses are definitely imperfect; they have often led the person with the distorted image of reality to make a rash judgement, not based upon authentic knowledge but upon sensory input alone. The concept of Virtual Reality, which allows for a total distortion of the senses, can be used as a further example of the imperfect nature of the senses. If a person is hooked up to a Virtual Reality system, one which has faulty mathematical equations for physical laws in the make-believe world, the person would be able to observe with his senses a reality which would not relate to what is possible mathematically. For example, if the mathematical formula used for the creation of vectors was slightly incorrect, then a person could observe a billiard ball hitting off the edge of a table moving in a way that mathematics would not allow. If a person relied upon this sensory input as a means of creating laws about reality, he would grasp a physical system which would contradict what mathematically derived laws would produce.
    These examples help show why we can not fully trust our senses for trying to sort out truth. A person who relies solely upon sensory data can often become quite confused about reality. Take what has already been seen above, further: the stick in the water looks bent, but if a person with his free hand reaches down into the water, he will notice that through the sensory perception given with feeling, that the stick will not feel bent, but straight. Here he will find an intricate contradiction which he can not fathom an answer purely with his senses; a mimic who can impersonate voices of other people, when one examines what can be offered using two different sensory indications, that of sight and sound, conflicting information will be obtained. These indicate that the senses do not always agree with each other, and one must be cautious in figuring out which one, if any, to believe.
    Socrates emphasizes that we should use the intellect to make valid decisions about reality instead of having a reliance upon the senses. If a person relied upon the senses as the ultimate source of information, then the person would be confused with conflicts which can occur with the senses. Reason can often be employed to bring a person beyond the realm of confusion. If a person who could imitate President Clinton's voice called someone on the telephone, the data offered by the senses would indicate that it was indeed President Clinton. What that mimic said, however, if one did not rely upon just the sound of the voice, but on the content, could be used to help determine the credibility of the call: for example, if the person who claimed to be President Clinton said "I am going to go to your house tomorrow and kill everyone inside it," and the person previously had no contact with President Clinton, reason would indicate such a comment would probably not come from President Clinton: both because it is unlikely that President Clinton would threaten anyone in those kind of words, and because President Clinton would have no reason to call someone he does not know to threaten that person. If the person saw the imitator in person, and heard him speak and say the same words to him face to face, reason can make use of the sensory data, where it conflicts, and find out which is most likely to be true: in this case, that the person was a fake and not President Clinton.
    Sensory images, when mixed with reason, still can confuse a person seeking truth. If that Presidential imitator not only sounded like President Clinton, but also looked like President Clinton, then the person observing this data could be able to make the conclusion, how unlikely it seemed, that the person making these threats was indeed President Clinton. The person looking down at stick in the water, might make the conclusion that the sensory input of sight was a stronger indicator of truth, and thus make the wrong conclusion about the stick. Sensory images themselves are not conclusive, and unless one understands that about them, the confusion they can bring is quite capable of bringing someone to believe something which is not true.
    Socrates' belief that the sensory data hinders man from the progression of receiving and understanding truth, and hence that sensory data itself can not be trusted to bring forth truth, is vindicated on the argument of the confusion which the senses bring forth into man. The pursuit of knowledge needs to go beyond sensory data, into a pursuit of reality which can not be falsified. For knowledge on the surrounding world, it is true that sensory data will be a tool, however inaccurate it might be, but for Socrates the higher forms of knowledge are beyond the physical world, but in the realm of ideas (for forms); that is, in the realm of being: here, the senses have no say, no direction, no guidance, no ability to determine truth or falsehood. To get to his realm, one must thus abandon his senses, and attain to the ability of his mind.

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