Virtual Senses

It seems likely to me that the sense-making processes which we have operate by taking inputs from the various sensory organs (interoceptive and exteroceptive) and then performing fairly scripted processes on those inputs (possibly corresponding to something like the 'cognitive operators' that Newberg and D'Aquili talk about). It also seems likely that, in addition to the literal organs of sense which we use to navigate the world, we also have 'virtual' senses which perform similar functions but are written in the software of the brain rather that the hardware of the body. Something like this must be the case if we are to account for dreams and other act of imagination. Putting these two ideas together, it may be possible that the cognitive operations which silently and routinely act upon the inputs from our literal somatosensory system also act within the loop of virtual cognitive apprehension. (Or maybe not).

Category:

Education

Tags:

• cognition
• cognitive
• operators
• sense
• sensorimotor
• system
• somatosensory
• brain
• science
• neuroscience
• Raymond
• Gibbs
• poetics