The senses

THE SENSES

An itching sensation caused by an insect bite, a feeling of hunger, the coolness of a breeze or the warmth of sunshine against the skin all together may comprise the SUBJECTIVE ESSENCE of an experience at a certain moment. Its quality motivates a desire to either lessen, strengthen, or preserve its current value. At this stage, however, the itching does not have to be related to the insect, hunger does not need to be linked to the lack of food, and coolness or warmth may be without any reference to either wind or sunshine.
The visual images of the landscape, the sky, people, animals, and trees, including colors, shapes, and movements, along with sounds and smells will give the experience knowledge of its OBJECTIVE FORM.
The two-layer composite of form and essence will constitute an experience of a definite meaning. As such, it can be "filed" in memory. From then on, any portion of such experience, whether encountered in the objective surroundings or occurring subjectively as an image in the Mind, will have the power of evoking (bringing to Mind) its remaining elements or the original experience in its entirety. Of course, the larger fragments of the experience will have this power in a greater measure, since they resemble the initial experience to a greater extent.
After a certain amount of such primary learning occurs, it itself becomes a source of a third distinct input, an input from memory, which feeds back into subsequent experience affecting its overall quality.

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The senses of sight, hearing, and smell provide us with the objective information about the outside world. Generally, such information is neutral in itself. It may be judged as either agreeable or disagreeable strictly because of what it implies in terms of the possible consequences for the body.
Since these senses provide information about the external world, they may be considered EXTENDED SENSES. The sight of food is pleasant only because it SIGNIFIES eating, and a sudden sound of screeching automobile tires is abhorrent only because it IMPLIES imminent physical harm.
Of course, in certain extreme cases, extended senses may also carry an immediate, self-validating significance. For instance: too intense a light that blinds, too loud a sound that bursts eardrums.
The sense of touch is unique: it is objective, because it is neutral through a good portion of its usual range, and it is extended, since it is a source of knowledge about external objects. On the other hand, its inherent directness of contact with the body gives touch an immediate connection with physical pain and physical pleasure, both of which are unequivocally subjective.
The sense of taste has a predominant subjective component - unless we taste things tasteless :-). However, it is not subjective in the same sense as a headache or a sore throat, since it possesses an external object - food.
Smell is an outer projection of taste; as such it is predominantly objective. However, it is not neutral. Most things smell good or bad not because of secondary associations with other things, but because of the way we spontaneously react to their intrinsic qualities.
Is a sexual experience that of the partner or that of the self? Is a blow to the head the feel of the head or of the object that struck it? What is experience, anyway? Is it a quality of he who experiences or is it a quality of that which is being experienced? Is there really a difference?

Copyright © 1997 - 2010 by Andrzej Wodzianicki

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