Sense-Organs - by Rajesh Kasturirangan - Ranganaut
There are poles to our experience — the subject and the object poles being prominent polar opposites. Each pole represents a typical way of acting. For example, the subject pole is active while the object pole is passive. Perception is tied to the subject pole, for perception is about the mind actively going out and meeting the world. The mind, i.e., subject, is active and the world, i.e., the object, is passive. Hence the subject viewing the object. In emotion, on the other hand, the feeler takes on the object role; it is the world that is active and the mind that is passive, relatively speaking. Emotions — fear, anger, happiness, etc — are mostly responses to the world’s actions (think of the fear one might feel when hearing a lion roar in the African Savannah). The object of an emotion — the roaring lion — is the cause of what we end up feeling. Therefore, perception and emotion, while having the same underlying principles (like figure-ground organization) might be dominated by different poles of experience. To conclude, polar organization and figure-ground organization are two principles that structure sensing, sense-making and sensitivity. The relation between the three senses of sense is part of a larger investigation of the self and its relation to all cognition, perception and effect.