The recent paper I re-wrote on cognition, curriculum and aesthetics is changing the way I perceive my experience and the mechanisms that both extract meaning and trigger emotional reactions. If I can write out this theory in my own words, it will help me understand how my conception of the formation of my own identity is operating. My brain is engaged in a constant process of analyzing, coding, and archiving sensory data, discerning what of that data is most relevant to my well being, and making decisions about “what is the next right thing to do?”. Concurrent with the processing of sensory data is a retrieval system that sifts through my memory systems, which have been indexed by value-category, to determine what previous experience the current experience can be linked to. It is this linking between sensory data and memory that makes it possible for me to construct meaning from my experience. My sense of self is the combination of my entire value-category memory system, as it is ‘awakened’ in relation to current experience. My ’self’ is that process, that mixing and matching of memory and experience, to determine what this current situation means, and what I am going to do about it. There are multiple environments that I have associated memory attachments with, and different environments will trigger characteristic clusters of memory. In addition, environments will also stimulate different neural clusters – for example, an echoing, busy bus terminal with departures being called out over a public address system is going to evoke a different sensory experience than sitting perched on a rock bluff over a spring swollen, rushing river.
