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4 The Animal Sensorium
Actually, of course, the situation is far more complex. Every organ of the
body is designed to carry out a specific function: A heart is a pump, lungs are
designed for gas exchange, kidneys are made to filter impurities. Every organ
has its autonomy in the sense that centrally it must carry out its intended task
according to its own design principle—while peripherally it communicates
and coordinates with other organs. The core task of the brain is to integrate
the activity of all the organs so that out of the myriad interweaving processes
there emerges a unitary organism with a unified single purpose. The perceived
separation between body and mind is a natural and inevitable concomitant of
any system’s division into functional parts with a central coordinating hub.
When the process of evolution gave rise to sentient creatures, it became
necessary for such organisms to have a way of internally registering information.
Like so many astonishing and unaccountable solutions found by nature, the
resolution in this case was to endow organisms with an internal sensibility
and reactivity that we refer to as sensation. You and I believe we know what
sensation is, because it is the most salient fact of our existence. As Descartes
asserted, even if we know nothing else, we know our sensations.
However, from an external perspective it is categorically impossible to
explain what sensation is or how it acts. Sensory feelings can be known only
“from the inside”. Nothing in the material world can give us any clue to what
they are. Ask yourself: What kind of entity—in the context of the universe—is
a feeling?
Sensations, beliefs, imaginings and feelings are often referred to as figments,
that is, creations of the mind. A mental image is taken to be something less
than real: For one thing, it has no material substance and is impossible to
detect except in the mind of the perceiver. It is true that sensations are caused
by electrochemical events in a brain, but when experienced by a living mind,
sensations are decisively different in kind from electrons in motion. They are
indeed “figments” because they exist nowhere except in awareness. As a matter
of fact, they exist only as claims made by sentient beings, with no material
evidence to back up those claims. Indeed, brain scans reveal electrical activity,
but do not display sensations or inner experience.
An animal’s Sensorium is the repository of all its sensations and sensory
experience. The Sensorium does not correspond to a specific area of the brain,
but is a widely distributed collection of innate sensibilities and capacities. One
of the central tasks of the brain is to code all sensory input so it gives rise in
the organism to specific impressions and sensations. Everything that comes
into the field of our awareness, every shading and nuance of feeling, is coded
so as to have its unique, highly specific effect on consciousness. The quest to
4 The Animal Sensorium
Actually, of course, the situation is far more complex. Every organ of the
body is designed to carry out a specific function: A heart is a pump, lungs are
designed for gas exchange, kidneys are made to filter impurities. Every organ
has its autonomy in the sense that centrally it must carry out its intended task
according to its own design principle—while peripherally it communicates
and coordinates with other organs. The core task of the brain is to integrate
the activity of all the organs so that out of the myriad interweaving processes
there emerges a unitary organism with a unified single purpose. The perceived
separation between body and mind is a natural and inevitable concomitant of
any system’s division into functional parts with a central coordinating hub.
When the process of evolution gave rise to sentient creatures, it became
necessary for such organisms to have a way of internally registering information.
Like so many astonishing and unaccountable solutions found by nature, the
resolution in this case was to endow organisms with an internal sensibility
and reactivity that we refer to as sensation. You and I believe we know what
sensation is, because it is the most salient fact of our existence. As Descartes
asserted, even if we know nothing else, we know our sensations.
However, from an external perspective it is categorically impossible to
explain what sensation is or how it acts. Sensory feelings can be known only
“from the inside”. Nothing in the material world can give us any clue to what
they are. Ask yourself: What kind of entity—in the context of the universe—is
a feeling?
Sensations, beliefs, imaginings and feelings are often referred to as figments,
that is, creations of the mind. A mental image is taken to be something less
than real: For one thing, it has no material substance and is impossible to
detect except in the mind of the perceiver. It is true that sensations are caused
by electrochemical events in a brain, but when experienced by a living mind,
sensations are decisively different in kind from electrons in motion. They are
indeed “figments” because they exist nowhere except in awareness. As a matter
of fact, they exist only as claims made by sentient beings, with no material
evidence to back up those claims. Indeed, brain scans reveal electrical activity,
but do not display sensations or inner experience.
An animal’s Sensorium is the repository of all its sensations and sensory
experience. The Sensorium does not correspond to a specific area of the brain,
but is a widely distributed collection of innate sensibilities and capacities. One
of the central tasks of the brain is to code all sensory input so it gives rise in
the organism to specific impressions and sensations. Everything that comes
into the field of our awareness, every shading and nuance of feeling, is coded
so as to have its unique, highly specific effect on consciousness. The quest to