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94-494: In Samkhya philosophy, a guṇa is one of three "tendencies, qualities": sattva , rajas and tamas . This category of qualities has been widely adopted by various schools of Hinduism for categorizing behavior and natural phenomena. The three qualities are: In Indian philosophy, these qualities are not considered as present in either-or fashion. Rather, everyone and everything has all three, only in different proportions and in different contexts. The living being or substance

188-415: A modular way , with different areas processing different kinds of sensory information. Some of these modules take the form of sensory maps , mapping some aspect of the world across part of the brain's surface. These different modules are interconnected and influence each other. For instance, taste is strongly influenced by smell. The process of perception begins with an object in the real world, known as

282-592: A path to liberation. It describes sattva as superior to the other two gunas because it brings clarity, leads to higher realms, and is without impurities, but it is also described as a cause of bondage. Verse 14.6 describes sattva as: because sattva is flawless it is luminous and has no contamination. It is through attachment to happiness and attachment to knowledge ( jñana ) that it causes bondage, O sinless one. It causes bondage, as explained in verse 14.9, by attachment to happiness. Sattva , or satta in Pali language ,

376-416: A rabbit retinal ganglion, although in a mouse retinal ganglion cell the initial spike takes between 40 and 240 milliseconds before the initial activation. The initial activation can be detected by an action potential spike, a sudden spike in neuron membrane electric voltage. A perceptual visual event measured in humans was the presentation to individuals of an anomalous word. If these individuals are shown

470-405: A receptor (one of 347 or so). It is this process that causes humans to understand the concept of smell from a physical standpoint. Smell is also a very interactive sense as scientists have begun to observe that olfaction comes into contact with the other sense in unexpected ways. It is also the most primal of the senses, as it is known to be the first indicator of safety or danger, therefore being

564-480: A sentence, presented as a sequence of single words on a computer screen, with a puzzling word out of place in the sequence, the perception of the puzzling word can register on an electroencephalogram (EEG). In an experiment, human readers wore an elastic cap with 64 embedded electrodes distributed over their scalp surface. Within 230 milliseconds of encountering the anomalous word, the human readers generated an event-related electrical potential alteration of their EEG at

658-440: A single source: in real situations, sounds from multiple sources and directions are superimposed as they arrive at the ears. Hearing involves the computationally complex task of separating out sources of interest, identifying them and often estimating their distance and direction. The process of recognizing objects through touch is known as haptic perception . It involves a combination of somatosensory perception of patterns on

752-413: A spot in the environment first alters photoreceptor cells in the retina , which send a signal to the retina bipolar cell layer which, in turn, can activate a retinal ganglion neuron cell. A retinal ganglion cell is a bridging neuron that connects visual retinal input to the visual processing centers within the central nervous system. Light-altered neuron activation occurs within about 5–20 milliseconds in

846-435: A state of tension among its constituent strands or gunas – sattva , rajas and tamas . In a state of equilibrium of three gunas, when the three together are one, "unmanifest" Prakṛti which is unknowable. A guṇa is an entity that can change, either increase or decrease, therefore, pure consciousness is called nirguna or without any modification. The evolution obeys causality relationships, with primal Nature itself being

940-465: A time, in a process termed multistable perception . The same stimuli, or absence of them, may result in different percepts depending on subject's culture and previous experiences. Ambiguous figures demonstrate that a single stimulus can result in more than one percept. For example, the Rubin vase can be interpreted either as a vase or as two faces. The percept can bind sensations from multiple senses into

1034-479: A whole. A picture of a talking person on a television screen, for example, is bound to the sound of speech from speakers to form a percept of a talking person. In many ways, vision is the primary human sense. Light is taken in through each eye and focused in a way which sorts it on the retina according to direction of origin. A dense surface of photosensitive cells, including rods, cones, and intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells captures information about

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1128-474: Is a Sanskrit word that, depending on the context, means 'to reckon, count, enumerate, calculate, deliberate, reason, reasoning by numeric enumeration, relating to number, rational'. In the context of ancient Indian philosophies, Samkhya refers to the philosophical school in Hinduism based on systematic enumeration and rational examination. The word samkhya means 'empirical' or 'relating to numbers'. Although

1222-426: Is a dualistic orthodox school of Hindu philosophy . It views reality as composed of two independent principles, Puruṣa (' consciousness ' or spirit) and Prakṛti (nature or matter, including the human mind and emotions). Puruṣa is the witness-consciousness. It is absolute, independent, free, beyond perception, above any experience by mind or senses, and impossible to describe in words. Prakriti

1316-452: Is a measurable difference between the making of a decision and the feeling of agency. Through methods such as the Libet experiment , a gap of half a second or more can be detected from the time when there are detectable neurological signs of a decision having been made to the time when the subject actually becomes conscious of the decision. There are also experiments in which an illusion of agency

1410-490: Is a process that transforms this low-level information to higher-level information (e.g., extracts shapes for object recognition ). The following process connects a person's concepts and expectations (or knowledge ) with restorative and selective mechanisms, such as attention , that influence perception. Perception depends on complex functions of the nervous system , but subjectively seems mostly effortless because this processing happens outside conscious awareness . Since

1504-573: Is bonded to Prakriti . Human experience is an interplay of the two, Puruṣa being conscious of the various combinations of cognitive activities. The end of the bondage of Puruṣa to Prakriti is called Moksha (Liberation) or Kaivalya (Isolation). Samkhya's epistemology accepts three of six pramanas ('proofs') as the only reliable means of gaining knowledge, as does yoga . These are pratyakṣa (' perception '), anumāṇa (' inference ') and śabda ( āptavacana , meaning, 'word/testimony of reliable sources'). Sometimes described as one of

1598-426: Is complicated and likely experienced a non-linear development. Samkhya is not necessarily non-Vedic nor pre-Vedic nor a 'reaction to Brahmanic hegemony', states Burley. It is most plausibly in its origins a lineage that grew and evolved from a combination of ascetic traditions and Vedic guru (teacher) and disciples. Burley suggests the link between Samkhya and Yoga as likely the root of this evolutionary origin during

1692-510: Is considered the fifth primary taste, is a relatively recent development in Western cuisine . Other tastes can be mimicked by combining these basic tastes, all of which contribute only partially to the sensation and flavor of food in the mouth. Other factors include smell , which is detected by the olfactory epithelium of the nose; texture , which is detected through a variety of mechanoreceptors , muscle nerves, etc.; and temperature, which

1786-502: Is crucial to Patanjali 's yoga system. The strands of Samkhya thought can be traced back to the Vedic speculation of creation. It is also frequently mentioned in the Mahabharata and Yogavasishta . Larson (1969) discerns four basic periods in the development of Samkhya: Larson (1987) discerns three phases of development of the term samkhya , relating to three different meanings: In

1880-481: Is detected by thermoreceptors . All basic tastes are classified as either appetitive or aversive , depending upon whether the things they sense are harmful or beneficial. Smell is the process of absorbing molecules through olfactory organs , which are absorbed by humans through the nose . These molecules diffuse through a thick layer of mucus ; come into contact with one of thousands of cilia that are projected from sensory neurons; and are then absorbed into

1974-443: Is dominant at specific times of day. The interplay of these guṇa defines the character of someone or something, of nature and determines the progress of life. The Samkhya theory of guṇa was widely discussed, developed and refined by various schools of Indian philosophies. Samkhya's philosophical treatises also influenced the development of various theories of Hindu ethics. Thought processes and mental events are conscious only to

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2068-434: Is exploited in human technologies such as camouflage and biological mimicry . For example, the wings of European peacock butterflies bear eyespots that birds respond to as though they were the eyes of a dangerous predator. There is also evidence that the brain in some ways operates on a slight "delay" in order to allow nerve impulses from distant parts of the body to be integrated into simultaneous signals. Perception

2162-556: Is found in Buddhist texts, such as in Bodhi-sattva . The sattva in Buddhism means "a living being, creature, person or sentient being". Samkhya "Samkhya is not one of the systems of Indian philosophy. Samkhya is the philosophy of India!" Gopinath Kaviraj Samkhya or Sankhya ( / ˈ s ɑː ŋ k j ə / ; Sanskrit : सांख्य , romanized :  sāṃkhya )

2256-505: Is induced in psychologically normal subjects. In 1999, psychologists Wegner and Wheatley gave subjects instructions to move a mouse around a scene and point to an image about once every thirty seconds. However, a second person—acting as a test subject but actually a confederate—had their hand on the mouse at the same time, and controlled some of the movement. Experimenters were able to arrange for subjects to perceive certain "forced stops" as if they were their own choice. Recognition memory

2350-463: Is matter or nature. It is inactive, unconscious, and is a balance of the three guṇas (qualities or innate tendencies), namely sattva , rajas , and tamas . When Prakṛti comes into contact with Purusha this balance is disturbed, and Prakriti becomes manifest, evolving twenty-three tattvas , namely intellect ( buddhi , mahat ), ego ( ahamkara ), mind ( manas ); the five sensory capacities known as ears, skin, eyes, tongue and nose;

2444-501: Is needed to associate the feeling with a specific source. Sexual stimulation is any stimulus (including bodily contact) that leads to, enhances, and maintains sexual arousal , possibly even leading to orgasm . Distinct from the general sense of touch , sexual stimulation is strongly tied to hormonal activity and chemical triggers in the body. Although sexual arousal may arise without physical stimulation , achieving orgasm usually requires physical sexual stimulation (stimulation of

2538-469: Is neither produced nor does it produce. No appellations can qualify Purusha , nor can it be substantialized or objectified. It "cannot be reduced, can't be 'settled'". Any designation of Purusha comes from Prakriti , and is a limitation. Unlike Advaita Vedanta , and like Purva-Mīmāṃsā , Samkhya believes in plurality of the Puruṣas . Prakṛti is the first cause of the world of our experiences. Since it

2632-413: Is often mistranslated as 'matter' or 'nature' – in non-Sāṃkhyan usage it does mean 'essential nature' – but that distracts from the heavy Sāṃkhyan stress on prakṛti's cognitive, mental, psychological and sensorial activities. Moreover, subtle and gross matter are its most derivative byproducts, not its core. Only prakṛti acts. Puruṣa is considered as the conscious principle, a passive enjoyer ( bhokta ) and

2726-429: Is one of the oldest fields in psychology. The oldest quantitative laws in psychology are Weber's law , which states that the smallest noticeable difference in stimulus intensity is proportional to the intensity of the reference; and Fechner's law , which quantifies the relationship between the intensity of the physical stimulus and its perceptual counterpart (e.g., testing how much darker a computer screen can get before

2820-435: Is possible other sensory modalities are integrated at this stage as well. This speech information can then be used for higher-level language processes, such as word recognition . Speech perception is not necessarily uni-directional. Higher-level language processes connected with morphology , syntax , and/or semantics may also interact with basic speech perception processes to aid in recognition of speech sounds. It may be

2914-432: Is rooted in agricultural concepts of the union of the male sky-god and the female earth-goddess, the union of "the spiritual, immaterial, lordly, immobile fertilizer (represented as the Śiva-liṅgam, or phallus) and of the active, fertile, powerful but subservient material principle (Śakti or Power, often as the horrible Dark Lady, Kālī)." In contrast, The ascetic and meditative yoga practice, in contrast, aimed at overcoming

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3008-403: Is sometimes divided into two functions by neuroscientists: familiarity and recollection . A strong sense of familiarity can occur without any recollection, for example in cases of deja vu . The temporal lobe (specifically the perirhinal cortex ) responds differently to stimuli that feel novel compared to stimuli that feel familiar. Firing rates in the perirhinal cortex are connected with

3102-448: Is still active debate about the extent to which perception is an active process of hypothesis testing, analogous to science , or whether realistic sensory information is rich enough to make this process unnecessary. The perceptual systems of the brain enable individuals to see the world around them as stable, even though the sensory information is typically incomplete and rapidly varying. Human and other animal brains are structured in

3196-402: Is that not only physical entities but even mind, ego and intelligence are regarded as forms of Unconsciousness, quite distinct from pure consciousness. Samkhya theorizes that Prakṛti is the source of the perceived world of becoming. It is pure potentiality that evolves itself successively into twenty four tattvas or principles. The evolution itself is possible because Prakṛti is always in

3290-416: Is the first principle ( tattva ) of the universe, it is called the pradhāna (chief principle), but, as it is the unconscious and unintelligent principle, it is also called the jaḍa (unintelligent). It is composed of three essential characteristics ( triguna s). These are: Unmanifested Prakriti is infinite, inactive, and unconscious, with the three gunas in a state of equilibrium. When this equilibrium of

3384-592: Is transparently transferred to the end of the tool. Taste (formally known as gustation ) is the ability to perceive the flavor of substances, including, but not limited to, food . Humans receive tastes through sensory organs concentrated on the upper surface of the tongue , called taste buds or gustatory calyculi . The human tongue has 100 to 150 taste receptor cells on each of its roughly-ten thousand taste buds. Traditionally, there have been four primary tastes: sweetness , bitterness , sourness , and saltiness . The recognition and awareness of umami , which

3478-484: Is very different than most Vedic speculation – but that is (itself) quite inconclusive. Speculations in the direction of the Samkhya can be found in the early Upanishads." According to Ruzsa in 2006, "Sāṅkhya has a very long history. Its roots go deeper than textual traditions allow us to see," stating that "Sāṅkhya likely grew out of speculations rooted in cosmic dualism and introspective meditational practice." The dualism

3572-485: Is viewed as the net result of the joint effect of these three qualities. According to the Samkhya school, no one and nothing is either purely sattvik or purely rajasik or purely tamasik. One's nature and behavior is a complex interplay of all of these, with each guna in varying degrees. In some, the conduct is rajasik with significant influence of sattvik guna, in some it is rajasik with significant influence of tamasik guna, and so on. The Bhagavad Gita describes sattva as

3666-433: The distal stimulus or distal object . By means of light, sound, or another physical process, the object stimulates the body's sensory organs. These sensory organs transform the input energy into neural activity—a process called transduction . This raw pattern of neural activity is called the proximal stimulus . These neural signals are then transmitted to the brain and processed. The resulting mental re-creation of

3760-553: The Bhagavad Gita , and the Mokshadharma -section of the Mahabharata . It was related to the early ascetic traditions and meditation, spiritual practices, and religious cosmology, and methods of reasoning that result in liberating knowledge ( vidya , jnana , viveka ) that end the cycle of duḥkha (suffering) and rebirth allowing for "a great variety of philosophical formulations". Pre- Karika systematic Samkhya existed around

3854-603: The Prakṛti is the enjoyed ( bhogya ). Samkhya believes that the puruṣa cannot be regarded as the source of inanimate world, because an intelligent principle cannot transform itself into the unconscious world. It is a pluralistic spiritualism, atheistic realism and uncompromising dualism. Puruṣa is the witness-consciousness. It is absolute, independent, free, imperceptible, unknowable through other agencies, above any experience by mind or senses and beyond any words or explanations. It remains pure, "nonattributive consciousness". Puruṣa

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3948-569: The Puruṣa that has attained liberation is to be distinguished from a Puruṣa that is still bound on account of the liberated Puruṣa being free from its subtle body (synonymous with buddhi), in which is located the mental dispositions that individuates it and causes it to experience bondage. Puruṣa , the eternal pure consciousness, due to ignorance, identifies itself with products of Prakṛti such as intellect (buddhi) and ego (ahamkara). This results in endless transmigration and suffering. However, once

4042-550: The Puruṣa , but that liberation is like bondage, wrongly ascribed to the Puruṣa and should be ascribed to Prakriti alone. Other forms of Samkhya teach that Mokṣa is attained by one's own development of the higher faculties of discrimination achieved by meditation and other yogic practices. Moksha is described by Samkhya scholars as a state of liberation, where sattva guṇa predominates. Samkhya considered Pratyakṣa or Dṛṣṭam (direct sense perception), Anumāna (inference), and Śabda or Āptavacana (verbal testimony of

4136-428: The Puruṣa : By seven modes nature binds herself by herself: by one, she releases (herself), for the soul's wish (Samkhya karika Verse 63) · Vacaspati gave a metaphorical example to elaborate the position that the Puruṣa is only mistakenly ascribed bondage: although the king is ascribed victory or defeat, it is actually the soldiers that experience it. It is then not merely that bondage is only mistakenly ascribed to

4230-516: The guṇas is disturbed then unmanifest Prakṛti , along with the omnipresent witness-consciousness, Purusha , gives rise to the manifest world of experience. Prakriti becomes manifest as twenty-three tattvas : intellect ( buddhi , mahat), ego ( ahamkara ) mind ( manas ); the five sensory capacities; the five action capacities; and the five "subtle elements" or "modes of sensory content" ( tanmatras : form ( rūpa ), sound ( shabda ), smell ( gandha ), taste ( rasa ), touch ( sparsha )), from which

4324-426: The nervous system , which in turn result from physical or chemical stimulation of the sensory system . Vision involves light striking the retina of the eye ; smell is mediated by odor molecules ; and hearing involves pressure waves . Perception is not only the passive receipt of these signals , but it is also shaped by the recipient's learning , memory , expectation , and attention . Sensory input

4418-470: The outer ears , which collect and filter sound waves; the middle ear , which transforms the sound pressure ( impedance matching ); and the inner ear , which produces neural signals in response to the sound. By the ascending auditory pathway these are led to the primary auditory cortex within the temporal lobe of the human brain, from where the auditory information then goes to the cerebral cortex for further processing. Sound does not usually come from

4512-515: The rationalist schools of Indian philosophy , it relies exclusively on reason. While Samkhya-like speculations can be found in the Rig Veda and some of the older Upanishads, some western scholars have proposed that Samkhya may have non-Vedic origins, developing in ascetic milieus. Proto-Samkhya ideas developed c. 8th/7th BC and onwards, as evidenced in the middle Upanishads, the Buddhacharita ,

4606-433: The throat and lungs . In the case of visual perception, some people can see the percept shift in their mind's eye . Others, who are not picture thinkers , may not necessarily perceive the 'shape-shifting' as their world changes. This esemplastic nature has been demonstrated by an experiment that showed that ambiguous images have multiple interpretations on the perceptual level. The confusing ambiguity of perception

4700-507: The Krause-Finger corpuscles found in erogenous zones of the body.) Other senses enable perception of body balance (vestibular sense ); acceleration , including gravity ; position of body parts (proprioception sense ). They can also enable perception of internal senses (interoception sense ), such as temperature, pain, suffocation , gag reflex , abdominal distension , fullness of rectum and urinary bladder , and sensations felt in

4794-618: The Samkhya and Mīmāṃsā schools appear to have been established before the Sramana traditions in India (~500 BCE), and he finds that "Samkhya represents a relatively free development of speculation among the Brahmans, independent of the Vedic revelation." Warder writes, '[Samkhya] has indeed been suggested to be non-Brahmanical and even anti-Vedic in origin, but there is no tangible evidence for that except that it

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4888-711: The Vedas, early Upanishads such as the Chandogya Upanishad , and the Bhagavad Gita . However, these early speculations and proto-Samkhya ideas had not distilled and congealed into a distinct, complete philosophy. While some earlier scholars have argued for Upanishadic origins of the Samkhya-tradition, and the Upanisads contain dualistic speculations which may have influenced proto-samkhya, other scholars have noted

4982-486: The Vedic era of India. According to Van Buitenen, various ideas on yoga and meditation developed in the interaction between various sramanas and ascetic groups. Perception Perception (from Latin perceptio  'gathering, receiving') is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through

5076-480: The agrarian theology of Śiva-Śakti/Sky-Earth and the tradition of yoga (meditation) do not appear to be rooted in the Vedas. Not surprisingly, classical Sāṅkhya is remarkably independent of orthodox Brahmanic traditions, including the Vedas. Sāṅkhya is silent about the Vedas, about their guardians (the Brahmins) and for that matter about the whole caste system, and about the Vedic gods; and it is slightly unfavorable towards

5170-653: The animal sacrifices that characterized the ancient Vedic religion. But all our early sources for the history of Sāṅkhya belong to the Vedic tradition, and it is thus reasonable to suppose that we do not see in them the full development of the Sāṅkhya system, but rather occasional glimpses of its development as it gained gradual acceptance in the Brahmanic fold. Burley argues for an ontegenetic or incremental development of Shamkya, instead of being established by one historical founder. Burley states that India's religio-cultural heritage

5264-667: The beginning of the first millennium CE. The defining method of Samkhya was established with the Samkhyakarika (4th c. CE). Samkhya might have been theistic or nontheistic, but with its classical systematization in the early first millennium CE, the existence of a deity became irrelevant. Samkhya is strongly related to the Yoga school of Hinduism , for which it forms the theoretical foundation, and it has influenced other schools of Indian philosophy. Sāṃkhya (सांख्य) or sāṅkhya , also transliterated as s amkhya and sankhya , respectively,

5358-681: The beginning this was Self alone, in the shape of a person (puruṣa). He looking around saw nothing but his Self ( Atman ). He first said, "This is I", therefore he became I by name. —Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 1.4.1 The early, speculative phase took place in the first half of the first millennium BCE, when ascetic spirituality and monastic ( sramana and yati ) traditions came into vogue in India, and ancient scholars combined "enumerated set[s] of principles" with "a methodology of reasoning that results in spiritual knowledge ( vidya, jnana, viveka )." These early non-Samkhya speculations and proto-Samkhya ideas are visible in earlier Hindu scriptures such as

5452-441: The brain, the suprachiasmatic nucleus , is responsible for the circadian rhythm (commonly known as one's "internal clock"), while other cell clusters appear to be capable of shorter-range timekeeping, known as an ultradian rhythm . One or more dopaminergic pathways in the central nervous system appear to have a strong modulatory influence on mental chronometry , particularly interval timing. Sense of agency refers to

5546-536: The case that it is not necessary (maybe not even possible) for a listener to recognize phonemes before recognizing higher units, such as words. In an experiment, professor Richard M. Warren replaced one phoneme of a word with a cough-like sound. His subjects restored the missing speech sound perceptually without any difficulty. Moreover, they were not able to accurately identify which phoneme had even been disturbed. Facial perception refers to cognitive processes specialized in handling human faces (including perceiving

5640-467: The cause. The cause under consideration here is Prakṛti or more precisely Moola-Prakṛti ("Primordial Matter"). The Samkhya system is therefore an exponent of an evolutionary theory of matter beginning with primordial matter. In evolution, Prakṛti is transformed and differentiated into multiplicity of objects. Evolution is followed by dissolution. In dissolution the physical existence, all the worldly objects mingle back into Prakṛti , which now remains as

5734-527: The dissimilarities of Shamkhya with the Vedic tradition. As early as 1898, Richard Karl von Garbe , a German professor of philosophy and Indologist, wrote in 1898, The origin of the Sankhya system appears in the proper light only when we understand that in those regions of India which were little influenced by Brahmanism [political connotation given by the Christian missionary] the first attempt had been made to solve

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5828-413: The distal stimulus is the percept . To explain the process of perception, an example could be an ordinary shoe. The shoe itself is the distal stimulus. When light from the shoe enters a person's eye and stimulates the retina, that stimulation is the proximal stimulus. The image of the shoe reconstructed by the brain of the person is the percept. Another example could be a ringing telephone. The ringing of

5922-405: The effect is pre-existent in the cause. There is only an apparent or illusory change in the makeup of the cause and not a material one, when it becomes effect. Since, effects cannot come from nothing, the original cause or ground of everything is seen as Prakṛti . More specifically, Samkhya system follows the prakṛti-Parināma Vāda . Parināma denotes that the effect is a real transformation of

6016-453: The extent they receive illumination from Purusha . In Samkhya, consciousness is compared to light which illuminates the material configurations or 'shapes' assumed by the mind. So intellect, after receiving cognitive structures from the mind and illumination from pure consciousness, creates thought structures that appear to be conscious. Ahamkara, the ego or the phenomenal self, appropriates all mental experiences to itself and thus, personalizes

6110-490: The five "gross elements" or "forms of perceptual objects" emerge (earth (prithivi), water (jala), fire (Agni), air (Vāyu), ether (Ākāsha)). Prakriti is the source of our experience; it is not "the evolution of a series of material entities," but "the emergence of experience itself". It is description of experience and the relations between its elements, not an explanation of the origin of the universe. All Prakriti has these three guṇas in different proportions. Each guṇa

6204-406: The five action capacities known as hasta, pada, bak, anus, and upastha; and the five "subtle elements" or "modes of sensory content" ( tanmatras ), from which the five "gross elements" or "forms of perceptual objects" (earth, water, fire, air and space) emerge, in turn giving rise to the manifestation of sensory experience and cognition. Jiva ('a living being') is the state in which Puruṣa

6298-423: The haptic system as "the sensibility of the individual to the world adjacent to his body by use of his body." Gibson and others emphasized the close link between body movement and haptic perception, where the latter is active exploration . The concept of haptic perception is related to the concept of extended physiological proprioception according to which, when using a tool such as a stick, perceptual experience

6392-421: The identity of an individual) and facial expressions (such as emotional cues.) The somatosensory cortex is a part of the brain that receives and encodes sensory information from receptors of the entire body. Affective touch is a type of sensory information that elicits an emotional reaction and is usually social in nature. Such information is actually coded differently than other sensory information. Though

6486-477: The information contained in" a target and a situation to form "perceptions of ourselves and others based on social categories." This model is composed of three states: According to Alan Saks and Gary Johns, there are three components to perception: Stimuli are not necessarily translated into a percept and rarely does a single stimulus translate into a percept. An ambiguous stimulus may sometimes be transduced into one or more percepts, experienced randomly, one at

6580-462: The information they process. Perceptual issues in philosophy include the extent to which sensory qualities such as sound , smell or color exist in objective reality rather than in the mind of the perceiver. Although people traditionally viewed the senses as passive receptors, the study of illusions and ambiguous images has demonstrated that the brain 's perceptual systems actively and pre-consciously attempt to make sense of their input. There

6674-544: The intensity of affective touch is still encoded in the primary somatosensory cortex, the feeling of pleasantness associated with affective touch is activated more in the anterior cingulate cortex . Increased blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) contrast imaging, identified during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), shows that signals in the anterior cingulate cortex, as well as the prefrontal cortex , are highly correlated with pleasantness scores of affective touch. Inhibitory transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) of

6768-424: The intensity, color, and position of incoming light. Some processing of texture and movement occurs within the neurons on the retina before the information is sent to the brain. In total, about 15 differing types of information are then forwarded to the brain proper via the optic nerve. The timing of perception of a visual event, at points along the visual circuit, have been measured. A sudden alteration of light at

6862-548: The left occipital-temporal channel, over the left occipital lobe and temporal lobe. Hearing (or audition ) is the ability to perceive sound by detecting vibrations (i.e., sonic detection). Frequencies capable of being heard by humans are called audio or audible frequencies , the range of which is typically considered to be between 20  Hz and 20,000 Hz. Frequencies higher than audio are referred to as ultrasonic , while frequencies below audio are referred to as infrasonic . The auditory system includes

6956-483: The limitations of the natural body and achieving perfect stillness of the mind. A combination of these views may have resulted in the concept of the Puruṣa , the unchanging immaterial conscious essence, contrasted with Prakṛti , the material principle that produces not only the external world and the body but also the changing and externally determined aspects of the human mind (such as the intellect, ego, internal and external perceptual organs). According to Ruzsa, Both

7050-424: The material cause of all physical creation. The cause and effect theory of Samkhya is called " Satkārya-vāda " ("theory of existent causes"), and holds that nothing can really be created from or destroyed into nothingness – all evolution is simply the transformation of primal Nature from one form to another. Samkhya cosmology describes how life emerges in the universe; the relationship between Purusha and Prakṛti

7144-498: The objective activities of mind and intellect by assuming possession of them. But consciousness is itself independent of the thought structures it illuminates. The Supreme Good is mokṣa which consists in the permanent impossibility of the incidence of pain... in the realisation of the Self as Self pure and simple. —Samkhyakarika I.3 Samkhya school considers moksha as a natural quest of every jiva. The Samkhyakarika states, As

7238-483: The perception of events and objects in the world. Chronoception refers to how the passage of time is perceived and experienced. Although the sense of time is not associated with a specific sensory system , the work of psychologists and neuroscientists indicates that human brains do have a system governing the perception of time, composed of a highly distributed system involving the cerebral cortex , cerebellum , and basal ganglia . One particular component of

7332-420: The phone is the distal stimulus. The sound stimulating a person's auditory receptors is the proximal stimulus. The brain's interpretation of this as the "ringing of a telephone" is the percept. The different kinds of sensation (such as warmth, sound, and taste) are called sensory modalities or stimulus modalities . Psychologist Jerome Bruner developed a model of perception, in which people put "together

7426-458: The primary somatosensory cortex inhibits the perception of affective touch intensity, but not affective touch pleasantness. Therefore, the S1 is not directly involved in processing socially affective touch pleasantness, but still plays a role in discriminating touch location and intensity. Multi-modal perception refers to concurrent stimulation in more than one sensory modality and the effect such has on

7520-423: The puruṣa or soul'. Samkhya makes a distinction between two "irreducible, innate and independent realities", Purusha , the witness-consciousness, and Prakṛti , "matter", the activities of mind and perception. According to Dan Lusthaus, In Sāṃkhya puruṣa signifies the observer, the 'witness'. Prakṛti includes all the cognitive, moral, psychological, emotional, sensorial and physical aspects of reality. It

7614-545: The realization arises that Puruṣa is distinct from Prakṛti , is more than empirical ego, and that puruṣa is deepest conscious self within, the Self gains isolation ( kaivalya ) and freedom ( moksha ). Though in conventional terms the bondage is ascribed to the Puruṣa , this is ultimately a mistake. This is because the Samkhya school (Samkhya karika Verse 63) maintains that it is actually Prakriti that binds itself, and thus bondage should in reality be ascribed to Prakriti , not to

7708-463: The riddles of the world and of our existence merely by means of reason. For the Sankhya philosophy is, in its essence, not only atheistic but also inimical to the Veda'. Dandekar , similarly wrote in 1968, 'The origin of the Sankhya is to be traced to the pre-Vedic non-Aryan thought complex'. Heinrich Zimmer states that Samkhya has non-Aryan origins. Anthony Warder (1994; first ed. 1967) writes that

7802-431: The rise of experimental psychology in the 19th century, psychology's understanding of perception has progressed by combining a variety of techniques. Psychophysics quantitatively describes the relationships between the physical qualities of the sensory input and perception. Sensory neuroscience studies the neural mechanisms underlying perception. Perceptual systems can also be studied computationally , in terms of

7896-446: The sages or shāstras) to be the only valid means of knowledge or pramana . Unlike some other schools, Samkhya did not consider the following three pramanas to be epistemically proper: Upamāṇa (comparison and analogy), Arthāpatti (postulation, deriving from circumstances) or Anupalabdi (non-perception, negative/cognitive proof). The Samkhya system is based on Sat-kārya-vāda or the theory of causation. According to Satkāryavāda,

7990-414: The same exploration behavior normally associated with novelty. Recent studies on lesions in the area concluded that rats with a damaged perirhinal cortex were still more interested in exploring when novel objects were present, but seemed unable to tell novel objects from familiar ones—they examined both equally. Thus, other brain regions are involved with noticing unfamiliarity, while the perirhinal cortex

8084-418: The sense of familiarity in humans and other mammals. In tests, stimulating this area at 10–15 Hz caused animals to treat even novel images as familiar, and stimulation at 30–40 Hz caused novel images to be partially treated as familiar. In particular, stimulation at 30–40 Hz led to animals looking at a familiar image for longer periods, as they would for an unfamiliar one, though it did not lead to

8178-509: The sense that drives the most basic of human survival skills. As such, it can be a catalyst for human behavior on a subconscious and instinctive level. Social perception is the part of perception that allows people to understand the individuals and groups of their social world. Thus, it is an element of social cognition . Speech perception is the process by which spoken language is heard, interpreted and understood. Research in this field seeks to understand how human listeners recognize

8272-430: The skin surface (e.g., edges, curvature, and texture) and proprioception of hand position and conformation. People can rapidly and accurately identify three-dimensional objects by touch. This involves exploratory procedures, such as moving the fingers over the outer surface of the object or holding the entire object in the hand. Haptic perception relies on the forces experienced during touch. Professor Gibson defined

8366-439: The sound is produced, can also have a considerable impact on perception. Experiments have shown that people automatically compensate for this effect when hearing speech. The process of perceiving speech begins at the level of the sound within the auditory signal and the process of audition . The initial auditory signal is compared with visual information—primarily lip movement—to extract acoustic cues and phonetic information. It

8460-415: The sound of speech (or phonetics ) and use such information to understand spoken language. Listeners manage to perceive words across a wide range of conditions, as the sound of a word can vary widely according to words that surround it and the tempo of the speech, as well as the physical characteristics, accent , tone , and mood of the speaker. Reverberation , signifying the persistence of sound after

8554-436: The subjective feeling of having chosen a particular action. Some conditions, such as schizophrenia , can cause a loss of this sense, which may lead a person into delusions, such as feeling like a machine or like an outside source is controlling them. An opposite extreme can also occur, where people experience everything in their environment as though they had decided that it would happen. Even in non- pathological cases, there

8648-404: The term had been used in the general sense of metaphysical knowledge before, in technical usage it refers to the Samkhya school of thought that evolved into a cohesive philosophical system in early centuries CE. The Samkhya system is called so because 'it "enumerates'" twenty five Tattvas or true principles; and its chief object is to effect the final emancipation of the twenty-fifth Tattva, i.e.

8742-522: The unconscious milk functions for the sake of nourishment of the calf, so the Prakriti functions for the sake of moksha of the spirit. Samkhya regards ignorance ( avidyā ) as the root cause of suffering and bondage ( Samsara ). Samkhya states that the way out of this suffering is through knowledge (viveka). Mokṣa (liberation), states Samkhya school, results from knowing the difference between Prakṛti (avyakta-vyakta) and Puruṣa (jña). More specifically,

8836-456: The undifferentiated, primordial substance. This is how the cycles of evolution and dissolution follow each other. But this theory is very different from the modern theories of science in the sense that Prakṛti evolves for each Jiva separately, giving individual bodies and minds to each and after liberation these elements of Prakṛti merges into the Moola-Prakṛti . Another uniqueness of Sāmkhya

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