Observations placeholder
Sacks, Oliver - On perception recall
Identifier
014346
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Our 'log' is a combination of the input from the nervous system, the 5 senses, the Will [direction/command and control system], and all the actions we have effected, each execution of the process being carefully combined to produce a composite picture of everything that has happened. This is what the perception process does. Just like a computer log, we could in theory see it rolled back and all our actions and emotions, sensual input and stimuli reversed.
It is 'time stamped' ordered and sequenced, so that if we view perceptions directly it would be like reliving a particular moment again with all its emotions and sensations.
By time stamped I do not mean it has the time of the day or the day of the month fixed to it. But because our system of sight in particular has time frame slots of a fixed duration – the flicker rate – the perceptions are based on this flicker rate which is constant for each species.
As we can see from the model, perceptions are used directly by the composer function to form dreams, visions and hallucinations. Memory is not the input the composer uses. Perceptions are however used in order to create memory and will be found as the main input to perfect recall.
A description of the experience
The Man who mistook his wife for a hat – Oliver Sacks
What occurs in these wholly personal experiential seizures, is an entire replay of a segment of experience. What, we may ask, could be played in such a way as to reconstitute an experience? Is it something akin to a film or record, played on the brain’s film projector or phonograph? Or something analogous, but logically anterior – such as a script or score? What is the final form, the natural form, of our life’s repertoire?
The source of the experience
Sacks, OliverConcepts, symbols and science items
Concepts
PerceptionPerception recall
Perceptions
Perceptions - accessing perceptions
Perceptions - what happens to perceptions
Perceptions - what has perceptions
Perceptions and memory