In the model, from the World to the Being-in-the-World of the Entities the data received from the World by the senses must be Interpreted, and this is performed by a series of Entity Interpretations. All senses within humans begin with the detection of some physical-world phenomenon that is encoded as a sequence of nervous impulses. This information may be altered in some way before it is passed on to the cortex, to the primary regions of which they project, but such "formatting" as it were is a logically unnecessary streamlining appended through evolution, for the information required for meaningful Interpretation is already present. The finer points of the process called Interpretation shall be left till the final iteration of our understanding of the model, accordingly, here we shall tackle the general flow and functional meaning of Entity Interpretation within the human cortex, and begin where sense information first arrives at the primary cortex. Entity Interpretation Sense information has no meaning, as an object with no name within no culture has no meaning. Meaning only emerges through a perceived context, meaning is relative, meaning is the product of an Interpretation of a thing as Being-in-the-World. This is the basis for Heideggerian ontology, which is the ontology of Dasein, which is the basic ontology of the human mind and begins with Interpretation of the sense data at the primary cortical regions. The first Interpretation, that of the data itself, produces low order Entities; to be sure, the lowest order Entities possible. What this means, in a philosophical and functional sense, shall be explicated later, for now one can understand that in performing an Interpretation this data has been recast as information relative to both other parts of itself (as one part of a picture is related to another) and relative to the prior informational experience of the cortex (what it has Interpreted before). Now such a low order Entity, though symbolic of something within-the-World (say a line or a region of colour), is necessarily representative of a low order concept and quite a clumsy block to be working with with regard to the World. Thus, the cortex then performs Interpretation on these Entities, and in relating these to one another, and to prior experience of this part of the cortex having Interpreted this type of Entity many times before, produces Entities of a higher order. These Entities are representative of something that, in an informational sense, is more complex yet also more abstract; in gaining the information of Interpretative experience Entities gradually become more defined by the relationships that have been laid down through previous Interpretations (as the function of Interpretation may be altered in its action), and so they become less defined by the data from which they originated. This is the foundation of relative ontology, Being-in-the-World, of procedural memory. This chain of successive Interpretation that gradually generates higher order Entities, each more complex in its representation of the World, is called derivative Entity Interpretation. Each of the three primary cortical senses does it, the paths being represented in the diagram below:  Sensory Convergence As the derivative Entity Interpretations make their way through the cortex, they also begin to merge with the Interpretations of other sensory Entities. This centres around the visual cortex, from which there are two distinct streams of information flow, called the dorsal and ventral streams. The dorsal stream Interprets, from the visual data, the relative position of Entities within the visual field and is often called the "where" stream. + The somatosensory projection Interprets the relative position and state of the body through proprioception and skin receptors sensitive to vibration, touch and temperature. = Merged, somato-visual Entities are representative of the relative position of sighted Entities within the World, relative to the position of the corporeal Self of Dasein The ventral stream Interprets, from the visual data, the quiddity of Entities within the visual field and is often called the "what" stream. + The auditory projection Interprets the noises, sounds and voices of the World through detection of changes in local air pressure by the ears. = Merged, audio-visual Entities are representative of the quiddity and sound of a thing within-the-World. The two merged sets of Entities may then be Interpreted together, and Dasein has built a multi-modal representation of the World which is representative of Entities, their locations and appearances and sounds, all relative to the location of the Self. Thus far, we have arrived at the highest order Entities that the sensory half of the brain may Interpret, yet there is one function missing from the picture here, Anticipation. Earlier it was described how from the Entities-in-the-World further Interpretation will produce a Potentiality-for-Being. Whilst Anticipation may certainly take place within this region of the brain, for the time being we shall let it be. Though, fundamentally, I am not totally sure as to the structural nature of Anticipation within the brain, this is not a problem and the reasons for leaving this shall become apparent in the next iteration of the model The Self as a Star-Entity In the final section on the temporal cycle it was noted how in its interactions with the World and the They, Dasein comes to recognise itself as an Entity within the World. Dasein is, to begin with, only a function, but through Interpretation of the effects of its own Actions within the World, it may become an Entity within the functional Interpretations of itself. In this section, we have just seen how in creating the Being-in-the-World of the Entities, Dasein as executed by the brain places itself in relative centricity, in both a sensory representation, and also in terms of simple Interpretistic importance. Essentially, this means that Dasein becomes what is known as a Star-Entity, an Entity that is so massively related to other Entities-within-the-World that it is constantly forming new connections; defining and being defined by an ever increasing number of Entities. By establishing itself in this position of dominance in Interpretation, the Entity of Dasein sets itself up to produce ego-centric Anticipations and Action, the topic of the next section. Dasein need not Interpret the Entities in such a manner, within the brain this is simply the product of evolution, and again this issue is dealt with in the final, computational iteration. Summary
Created 9th October 2008 Revised 19th February 2009 |