Mindless Sensitivity

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Dinesh ^club

Now, sensation as human beings experience, it is, of course a state of kind; a cognitive state in which you represent things to yourself as being this way. Yet, we can assume that, historically, sensation had simpler beginnings. Indeed, we can be sure that our own far-distant ancestors must have been sensitive to stimuli, reacting to environmental stimulation in a purely reflex way, long before they had anything that could be called a mind.

We can be sure of it not least because we can still see evidence of mindless sensitivity all around us. In fact, one of the great branches of life on Earth never took things further. Many plants today show adaptive bodily responses to stimuli -- opening their petals to the sun, dropping at the touch of predator, closing their jaws to trap an insect, learning over in the direction of a suitable host. A plant’s responses can show discrimination and purposiveness. We might even say they are a behavioral expression of how the plant evaluates the stimulus: the daisy welcomes the sun, the mimosa recoils from the deer’s attention. Except, of course that these evaluations are hard-wired and automatic. No feelings are involved. Page 45

5 years ago. Edited 23 months ago.

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