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4 The Animal Sensorium
nerve signal is chemical and electrical energy present on a physical conductor. In any college laboratory we can measure such a signal and reproduce it
artificially. The feeling the signal gives rise to in a mind—qua feeling—is something nonmaterial which no laboratory on earth can measure, approximate,
reproduce, or explain. Feelings are not physical—period!—and the often-heard
claim that sentience = electrical activity in brains is not plausible.
What is true for pain is true for all sense-data. When you look at a ripe
tomato you see its color as bright red: What that means is that complex nerve
signals are generated when the tomato image is processed by the brain, and
these signals are coded in such a way that they give rise in your mind to the
subjective experience of red. At the same time, you are given the experience of
the tomato’s smooth surface and roundness. All this is given by your brain in
visual code, which consists of fluctuations of electro-chemical energy in nerve
fibers.
Between the electrical activity on the brain’s cortex and the vivid experience
of a ripe tomato, there is a huge divide. The enterprise of explaining it is often
referred to (perhaps facetiously) as the “hard problem” of consciousness. I say
“facetiously” because this problem is not merely hard—we are so very far from
knowing anything at all about consciousness and how it arises from nervous
activity, that our understanding of conscious awareness is at the same stage as
physics was in the stone ages.
The Sensorium holds the key not only to the kind of feeling we register
from our body and sense of touch, but brings to us all the experience we get
through our senses. It delivers to us the specific quality of every sound we hear,
and makes it possible for us to see our surroundings as composed of definite
shapes, each of which has a specific aspect or character with which we relate
experientially.
Structure of the Sensorium
Our sensations are messages from our body: Every sensation tells us something,
and it is usually something explicit. A feeling of pain is not merely distressing,
it is also specific—for example it tells me I stubbed my left little toe. A stain
I notice is red, the very color of the strawberries I have been eating. Our
sensations are a way that information is presented to us, but unlike information
given to us in words, messages from our senses do not need to be decoded, for
they impact us directly: Nothing intervenes between a sensation and what it
means to us.
4 The Animal Sensorium
nerve signal is chemical and electrical energy present on a physical conductor. In any college laboratory we can measure such a signal and reproduce it
artificially. The feeling the signal gives rise to in a mind—qua feeling—is something nonmaterial which no laboratory on earth can measure, approximate,
reproduce, or explain. Feelings are not physical—period!—and the often-heard
claim that sentience = electrical activity in brains is not plausible.
What is true for pain is true for all sense-data. When you look at a ripe
tomato you see its color as bright red: What that means is that complex nerve
signals are generated when the tomato image is processed by the brain, and
these signals are coded in such a way that they give rise in your mind to the
subjective experience of red. At the same time, you are given the experience of
the tomato’s smooth surface and roundness. All this is given by your brain in
visual code, which consists of fluctuations of electro-chemical energy in nerve
fibers.
Between the electrical activity on the brain’s cortex and the vivid experience
of a ripe tomato, there is a huge divide. The enterprise of explaining it is often
referred to (perhaps facetiously) as the “hard problem” of consciousness. I say
“facetiously” because this problem is not merely hard—we are so very far from
knowing anything at all about consciousness and how it arises from nervous
activity, that our understanding of conscious awareness is at the same stage as
physics was in the stone ages.
The Sensorium holds the key not only to the kind of feeling we register
from our body and sense of touch, but brings to us all the experience we get
through our senses. It delivers to us the specific quality of every sound we hear,
and makes it possible for us to see our surroundings as composed of definite
shapes, each of which has a specific aspect or character with which we relate
experientially.
Structure of the Sensorium
Our sensations are messages from our body: Every sensation tells us something,
and it is usually something explicit. A feeling of pain is not merely distressing,
it is also specific—for example it tells me I stubbed my left little toe. A stain
I notice is red, the very color of the strawberries I have been eating. Our
sensations are a way that information is presented to us, but unlike information
given to us in words, messages from our senses do not need to be decoded, for
they impact us directly: Nothing intervenes between a sensation and what it
means to us.