4
The Animal Sensorium
Feeling-Matter
If we’re alive, awake and aware, then something is going on in our brain which
produces in us the sensation of being present and engaged with the world. Our
sensations are usually fairly specific, and seem to bring us information about
conditions in our immediate environment or in our bodies. The information
they bring us is not couched in any language, but is made known to us directly.
Spontaneously and without instruction, an infant or small animal knows that
a certain feeling is a pain in its toe, another is a feeling of heat or cold, another
is a sensation of the color red in a red object.
That is the first mystery of sensation: What we sense and feel is a form of
communication in which our sense organs dispatch messages that are meant to
be understood. These messages are very precise and specific, and express facts
such as that there’s damage to my right little toe, or the object I’m looking at is
red. The messages do not need to be decoded or interpreted, for the information
they bring is understood directly, without mediation. Understood by whom
or what? Communication of any kind consists of information from a sender
to a receiver. So who, or what, is the intended receiver of these messages?
Thinking persons from earliest times have pondered this question, and recognized that there is a kind of divide between the body and something we call
the mind, which is the intended recipient of sensory messages. This fact was
discussed and written about long before Descartes made it into the centerpiece
of his philosophy. The central idea is that the mind and body are in constant
communication, and seem to be two parties involved in a dialogue. The simplified story is that sense data are transmitted from the body to the mind, and
action plans, decided in the mind, are sent to the body.
© The Author(s) 2021
C. Pinter, Mind and the Cosmic Order,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50083-2_4
51
The Animal Sensorium
Feeling-Matter
If we’re alive, awake and aware, then something is going on in our brain which
produces in us the sensation of being present and engaged with the world. Our
sensations are usually fairly specific, and seem to bring us information about
conditions in our immediate environment or in our bodies. The information
they bring us is not couched in any language, but is made known to us directly.
Spontaneously and without instruction, an infant or small animal knows that
a certain feeling is a pain in its toe, another is a feeling of heat or cold, another
is a sensation of the color red in a red object.
That is the first mystery of sensation: What we sense and feel is a form of
communication in which our sense organs dispatch messages that are meant to
be understood. These messages are very precise and specific, and express facts
such as that there’s damage to my right little toe, or the object I’m looking at is
red. The messages do not need to be decoded or interpreted, for the information
they bring is understood directly, without mediation. Understood by whom
or what? Communication of any kind consists of information from a sender
to a receiver. So who, or what, is the intended receiver of these messages?
Thinking persons from earliest times have pondered this question, and recognized that there is a kind of divide between the body and something we call
the mind, which is the intended recipient of sensory messages. This fact was
discussed and written about long before Descartes made it into the centerpiece
of his philosophy. The central idea is that the mind and body are in constant
communication, and seem to be two parties involved in a dialogue. The simplified story is that sense data are transmitted from the body to the mind, and
action plans, decided in the mind, are sent to the body.
© The Author(s) 2021
C. Pinter, Mind and the Cosmic Order,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50083-2_4
51