Notes On The Sensory Order II
( Fit the first.)
The sensory order is topological: It's not physical position but rather logical position within the web of neural connections that matters, and two nodes can occupy the same logical position by having all their synaptic connections in common. To a first approximation the sensory order is a classification engine for detecting similarity and dissimilarity, which is a non-transitive relation: A may be similar to B which may be similar to C, without A and C being similar. Similarity within the sensory order just is the number of connections shared in common (including their stengths): if the afferent signals caused by two stimuli cause exactly the same (cortical) neural activity, they appear identical to us.
In principle you could wire up neurons linked to two seperate sense organs (say, the taste buds and optic nerve) to all the same cortical neurons and they'd trigger off the same mental events. (Cf. synaesthesia.) Thus, the appearance of similarity to us has no necessary logical connection to physical relationships. However, often physically similar events will occur together (such as light or sound waves with similar wavelength and frequency), and this is where physical similarity and sensory similarity do sometimes coincide. Alternatively, physically unrelated events such as motion and sound may tend to occur together and thus give rise to mutually excitory neural complexes representing "objects".
The sensory order is topological: It's not physical position but rather logical position within the web of neural connections that matters, and two nodes can occupy the same logical position by having all their synaptic connections in common. To a first approximation the sensory order is a classification engine for detecting similarity and dissimilarity, which is a non-transitive relation: A may be similar to B which may be similar to C, without A and C being similar. Similarity within the sensory order just is the number of connections shared in common (including their stengths): if the afferent signals caused by two stimuli cause exactly the same (cortical) neural activity, they appear identical to us.
In principle you could wire up neurons linked to two seperate sense organs (say, the taste buds and optic nerve) to all the same cortical neurons and they'd trigger off the same mental events. (Cf. synaesthesia.) Thus, the appearance of similarity to us has no necessary logical connection to physical relationships. However, often physically similar events will occur together (such as light or sound waves with similar wavelength and frequency), and this is where physical similarity and sensory similarity do sometimes coincide. Alternatively, physically unrelated events such as motion and sound may tend to occur together and thus give rise to mutually excitory neural complexes representing "objects".