[MD] Value orientation of sensory cognition

[MarshaV]

Hi Platt,

It was a great paper.  I find such an article like manna falling 
from the heavens.  It is my understanding that the MoQ is best 
understood as a bridge between Western Science and Eastern 
Wisdom, and this paper read from a MoQ'er point-of-view pulls 
so much together.  

Marsha  
 
 
 
 


On Aug 21, 2010, at 5:22 PM, plattholden at gmail.com wrote:

> Hi Marsha,
> 
> The "Sensory Cognition" paper you posted can be easily translated into a 
> Pirsigian value orientation without any change in its meaning. In fact, the 
> changes add to its meaning in a profound way. For example, I've substituted 
> some value terms in the fourth and fifth paragraphs (in caps):  
> 
> 
> On 21 Aug 2010 at 16:00, MarshaV wrote:
> 
> Marsha:
> Maybe James had some insights, but I hope you have not missed the paper I
> posted the other day.  It is very modern and up-to-date (2004):
> 
>        Sensory Cognition
> 
> It appears then that the objects of our sense organs are not really objects at 
> all; they only appear to be. This is tellingly illustrated in experiments 
> tracing people´s eyes as they scan a photograph. The eyes do not dwell on the 
> "objects" in the picture, but VALUE their outlines, where the greatest 
> contrasts lie. As Gregory Bateson (1979, 107) explains, "the end organs [of 
> sense] are thus in continual receipt of events that correspond to VALUED 
> outlines in the visible world. We VALUE distinctions; that is, we pull them 
> out. Those distinctions that remain WITHOUT VALUE are not." This then suggests 
> a third point: that our everyday awareness of the world, what we see and hear 
> and touch and smell, critically depends upon the VALUE distinctions our sense 
> faculties are capable of "MAKINGˇ" -- indeed, the world ordinarily only appears 
> in the forms VALUES MAKE.  
> 
> In this sense, cognitive awareness is both categorical and constructive. First, 
> the receptor neurons of the sense organs, according to cognitive scientist, 
> Christine Skarda (1999, 85), are "VALUE -specific in terms of their response 
> characteristics. Each VALUES maximally (i.e. with a burst of intense electrical 
> activity) to a specific type or class of stimuli,ˇ such as certain wavelengths 
> or intensities of light, temperature, sound, etc. Even putatively "pure 
> sensationsˇ" depend upon the elementary schemas that constitute the VALUE 
> responsive structure of the sense organs. This initial process, however, only 
> yields isolated neurological signals that at this stage do not yet amount to 
> VALUED objects or characteristics.
> 
> No problem for we Pirsigians in this "scientific" description of perception. It 
> jibes nicely with his premise that the world is not made up of subject and 
> objects, but rather consists of a structure of values.
> 
> Platt
> 
> 
> 
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