Structure of the Sensorium
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beings of another planet to get to know the 3-dimensional forms
of objects by making quick, line-of-sight measurements. But animals on this
planet don’t do that: The scheme of possible shapes is a set of biologically-based
categories distinguished from each other in biologically simple ways. For living
creatures on earth, shapes are not measured but felt.
Just as the Sensorium contains our underlying sensations, it also contains
the feeling of our volitional strivings. We feel the wish to move an arm, and
this feeling is associated with the know-how to command our motor centers
to make it happen. Just as a sensation is associated with a meaning in the
brain, a volitional decision is associated in the brain with the power to make it
happen. Under normal circumstances, one does not consciously plan an action:
One wills it, and the motor cortex programs and launches a train of muscular
contractions. We experience our volitions wordlessly, just as we experience
sensations.
Volition and sensation are closely intertwined. For example, when you have
the sensation of hunger, you simultaneously want to eat. When sensing an
itch you feel the wish to scratch, and the two feelings are almost the same. To
initiate an action, we first experience a feel of the action in our limbs, and it
is out of this feeling that the action is shaped. Every action we perform (such
as raising an arm) is preceded by the anticipated feeling of what it will be like.
The feeling shadows the action and sculpts it. 2
From neuroscience we know that some primal images and action programs
in animals are not present at birth—but rather, there are innate dispositions to
discover those things. Such dispositions facilitate the rapid acquisition of this
knowledge from experience by guiding and channelling learning in the right
direction. Among the most primitive contents of the Sensorium are inceptive images waiting to be elaborated, as well as the sensory aspect of simple
movement programs, ready to be fleshed out under the guidance of early
experience.
The Sensory Basis of Knowledge
When nervous systems evolved and gave rise to sentient creatures, it became
necessary to convey information to the sentient brain. If there were no way of
getting information to the sentient faculty, the brain would be locked into
itself and become a vestigial organ. Thus, the mechanism of evolutionary
development had to solve Descarte’s conundrum: There had to be an information channel between the world and the brain, going in both directions. This
57
beings of another planet to get to know the 3-dimensional forms
of objects by making quick, line-of-sight measurements. But animals on this
planet don’t do that: The scheme of possible shapes is a set of biologically-based
categories distinguished from each other in biologically simple ways. For living
creatures on earth, shapes are not measured but felt.
Just as the Sensorium contains our underlying sensations, it also contains
the feeling of our volitional strivings. We feel the wish to move an arm, and
this feeling is associated with the know-how to command our motor centers
to make it happen. Just as a sensation is associated with a meaning in the
brain, a volitional decision is associated in the brain with the power to make it
happen. Under normal circumstances, one does not consciously plan an action:
One wills it, and the motor cortex programs and launches a train of muscular
contractions. We experience our volitions wordlessly, just as we experience
sensations.
Volition and sensation are closely intertwined. For example, when you have
the sensation of hunger, you simultaneously want to eat. When sensing an
itch you feel the wish to scratch, and the two feelings are almost the same. To
initiate an action, we first experience a feel of the action in our limbs, and it
is out of this feeling that the action is shaped. Every action we perform (such
as raising an arm) is preceded by the anticipated feeling of what it will be like.
The feeling shadows the action and sculpts it. 2
From neuroscience we know that some primal images and action programs
in animals are not present at birth—but rather, there are innate dispositions to
discover those things. Such dispositions facilitate the rapid acquisition of this
knowledge from experience by guiding and channelling learning in the right
direction. Among the most primitive contents of the Sensorium are inceptive images waiting to be elaborated, as well as the sensory aspect of simple
movement programs, ready to be fleshed out under the guidance of early
experience.
The Sensory Basis of Knowledge
When nervous systems evolved and gave rise to sentient creatures, it became
necessary to convey information to the sentient brain. If there were no way of
getting information to the sentient faculty, the brain would be locked into
itself and become a vestigial organ. Thus, the mechanism of evolutionary
development had to solve Descarte’s conundrum: There had to be an information channel between the world and the brain, going in both directions. This