yes good day.
Sep. 26th, 2025 10:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I cannot tell if it's that I'm asleep, or that I'm Not A Biologist, or just that this paragraph (from The Challenge of Pain, Melzack & Wall) is actually very, but I am... struggling to persuade it to resolve into meaning:
Embryological and anatomical studies of fish, amphibians, and reptiles reveal that, even in the lowest vertebrates, reflexes are created by internuncial cells that link the sensory input to the motor output. During embryological development in these species, behaviour becomes increasingly a function of earlier sensory inputs as a result of the memory traces they have etched into the neural connections. Behaviour, then, is not merely the expression of a response to a stimulus, but a dynamic process comprising multiple interacting factors. Coghill (1929) was the first to propound this principle, based on his brilliant neuroembryological-behavioural studies of salamanders, which has been substantially confirmed by later investigators. Given this fundamental principle -- that organisms are not passive receivers manipulated by environmental inputs but act dynamically on those inputs so that behaviour becomes variable, unique and creative -- the remainder of evolution becomes comprehensible as a gradual development of mechanisms that make each new species increasingly independent of the push-and-pull of environmental circumstances.
Other than (but also, actually, in addition to) being sufficiently puzzled by this that I should definitely Go To Bed: I have caught up (mostly) on the PD e-mail. I completed one EYB indexing project and have been happily rolling around in making a start on the next. I made pastry, and used it as a prompt to unfuck the kitchen some, and then made progress on project Cook All The Things (From This One Book). I went on a Stupid Little Walk for my Stupid Mental Health. I am very very tired, and it has been a good day.