Passive Responding & Anticipatory Control
The structures of experience we establish at the first tier of consciousness enable us to carry out movement sequences in response to the undifferentiated realities we encounter. The first-tier lines of action we establish involve physical responses guided by the pre-empirical substrate I introduced in Of Two Minds # 8 that includes sensory, visceral, vestibular and mirroring processes.
The pre-empirically generated lines of action at the first tier, however, regardless of their intensity, are passively generated in response to the realities we encounter. If we could anticipate the situations that we are likely to encounter and rapidly initiate responses, our passive responses would become gradually transformed into expectations and anticipatory strategies. The sooner we recognize what is likely to occur, the more control we gain over what we are doing.
This transition, from passive responding to anticipatory control, is the defining feature that distinguishes humans from other species, and it marks the developmental change from innocence to experience that William Blake described. As we identify personally significant features within the realities we encounter, we learn to recognize them as entities and events. We develop symbols and words to designate these entities and describe events that enable us to devise future plans and strategies and further enhance our anticipatory control.
The symbols and words we assign to the entities and events we identify are themselves movement sequences that are added to the core of experience previously established at the first tier. They remain closely connected to their physical grounding, and recognition gives immediate access to this grounding core. Access activates a constellation of neuronal networks in the core of experience in preparation for an array of potential responses. Activation increases the baseline neuronal activity in these networks, priming them in anticipation of a response.
At the first tier, the complex array of ongoing sensory and visceral processes that are available at each moment in time is incorporated in its entirety into the integrated guidance that generates the actions taken. As Heidegger suggests in Being and Time, these integrated responses of being in the world reflect who we are authentically (visceral) and with care (sensory). In contrast, the conscious choices we initiate at the verbal-symbolic tier are guided by perceptual selectivity that recognizes only a small subset of the many potentially available visceral and sensory inputs. The core of experience at the first tier thus incorporates greater wisdom than can be expressed in our conscious descriptions and explanations. Actions generated at the first tier often involve subtle constellations of guidance that have not been identified or consciously recognized and thus remain invisible to our conscious decision making.
The movement sequences generated at the first tier of consciousness are also guided by mirroring and the personal resonance it makes possible. This adds a dimension of personal significance to their integrated guidance, making it even more difficult to articulate first tier processes at the verbal-symbolic tier. The core structures of experience we establish at the first tier incorporate an unvoiced level of personal meaning that adds depth and wisdom to the actions they guide us toward.
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