senses
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The inhumanity of contemporary architecture
The inhumanity of contemporary architecture and cities can be understood as the consequence of the neglect of the body and the senses, and an imbalance in our sensory system.
The art of the eye has certainly produced imposing and thought-provoking structures, but it has not facilitated human rootedness in the world.
Modernist design at large has housed the intellect and the eye, but it has left the body and the other senses, as well as our memories, imagination and dreams, homeless.
Art as art
If modern painting is "art as art," this means, to paraphrase Reinhardt, that is represents nothing and exists only in and for itself. If this has created an "art language, with an art communication," this is because this kind of art has implied all along a form of intimate contact with its viewer, in which the viewing of "art as art" becomes "sensation as sensation" or "perception as perception." This distinguishes "modern painting" from representational painting, which exhibits duality, that is, it uses imagery to refer to "past experiences and feeling," and to "color and reconstruct in the mind" associations that are meaningful, but that take the viewer far away from the specifics of the encounter with the painting before them.
Substitutes for the thermal experience
Such clues from other senses can become so strongly associated with a sense of coolness or warmth that they can occasionally substitute for the thermal experience itself. For example, the taste of mint seems refreshing and cool regardless of what temperature it is. Similarly, the pressure of heavy blankets conveys a feeling of warmth quite independent of their actual thermal qualities.
A hierarchical system of sense
During the Renaissance, the five senses were understood to form a hierarchical system from the highest sense of vision down to touch. Vision was correlated to fire and light, hearing to air, smell to vapour, taste to water, and touch to earth.
Extensions of the tactile sense
"Touch is the parent of our eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. It is the sense which became differentiated into the others." — Ashley Montagu
All the senses, including vision, are extensions of the tactile sense; the senses are specializations of skin tissue, and all sensory experiences are modes of touching, and thus related to tactility.
The totality of its sensory stimulation
Perhaps the human fascination with fire stems from the totality of its sensory stimulation. The fire gives a flickering and glowing light, ever moving, ever changing. It crackles and hisses and fills the room with the smells of smoke and wood and perhaps even food. It penetrates us with its warmth. Every sense is stimulated and all of their associated modes of perception, such as memory and an awareness of time, are also brought into play, focused on the one experience of the fire. Together they create such an intense feeling of reality, of the "here and nowness" of the moment, that the fire becomes completely captivating.
A simple pleasure that comes from just using it
People have a sense of warmth and coolness, a thermal sense like sight or smell, although it is not normally counted in the traditional list of our five senses.
As with all our other senses, there seems to be a simple pleasure that comes from just using it, letting it provide us with bits of information about the world around, using it to explore and learn, or just to notice.
There is a basic difference, however, between our thermal sense and all of our other senses. When our thermal sensors tell us an object is cold, that object is already making us colder. If, on the other hand, I look at a red object it won't make me grow redder, nor will touching a bump object make me bumpy.
Beauty and compression
An Article by Scott AlexanderThe Buddha discusses states of extreme bliss attainable through meditation:
Secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unwholesome states, a bhikkhu enters and dwells in the first jhāna, which is accompanied by thought and examination, with rapture and happiness born of seclusion.
...If you could really concentrate on a metronome, it would be more blissful than a symphony. The jhāna is also a strong contender as a theory of beauty: beauty is that which is compressible but has not already been compressed.
The primacy of interpretation over sensation
A Fragment by Mark LibermanOur memory of exact word sequences usually fades more quickly than our memory of (contextually interpreted) meanings.
More broadly, the exact auditory sensations normally fade very quickly; the corresponding word sequences fade a bit more slowly; and the interpreted meanings last longest.
These generalizations can be overcome to some extent if the sound or the text has especially memorable characteristics. (And the question of what "memorable" means in this context is interesting.)
Why Keep a Field Notebook?
Pick one thing
I recently started a field notebook assignment for my upper-level Ecology class at the University of Montana. I asked my students to pick one “thing” and observe it carefully over the entire semester.
In addition to their field notebooks, the students also had to suggest at least ten research questions inspired by their observations.
Lab notebooks
Most of my colleagues who conduct laboratory research not only keep extremely thorough and complete lab notebooks, but they teach their students how and why to keep data in them. Some labs even have friendly competitions in which prizes for the best-kept notebooks are awarded.
In stark contrast to the vibrant culture of keeping lab notebooks in molecular biology, my informal polling suggested a lack of interest in notebooks in field biology.
“I have a GPS for that.”
“My data are in a spreadsheet.”
“I write things down when I get home.”
“I have a computer.”The general consensus seemed to be that field notebooks are quaint, archaic, and obsolete in field biology.
Hybrid journals
The most useful and interesting notebooks of field biology are hybrids; as well as recording details and data of field research, they record the observations, thoughts, musings, and peregrinations of the author.
A fertile incubator
Another value of field notebooks is their ability to serve as an incredibly fertile incubator for your ideas and observations. By jotting down interesting observations, questions, and miscellaneous ideas, your field notebook can serve as a powerful catalyst for new experiments and projects.
Best practices
- Use a hardbound notebook.
- Keep your contact information in a prominent location.
- Write for yourself and for posterity.
- Write pertinent field information with every new entry. You should enter the date, time, and location at the top of every page.
- Add information on your location.
- Record your methods.
- Make backup copies.
- If you use abbreviations, make sure there is a key in your field notebook.
- Don’t leave home without it.
- Form a writing habit. Thomas Jefferson was such an inveterate chronicler of daily events in his notebooks that he even took the time to record the weather four times on the day he helped write the Declaration of Independence. So unless you have something far more pressing than writing the Declaration of Independence, you have no excuse for avoiding your field notebook!
- Set up a structure for your field notebook.
- Create an index.
- Treat your field notebook like a scrapbook. You should view your field notebook as a central clearinghouse for miscellaneous information that is relevant to your research project. If there are related bits of information that you will find useful later on, sketch them, write them down, photocopy them, and staple or tape them in your notebook.