Sense and Memory

Given the pretentious title of his blog, I would be remiss if i didn't mention an article from the june 30th issue of The New Yorker, titled "The Itch."  It begins with a horrifying anecdote about an insatiable itch that causes a woman to do nightmarish things to herself, then discusses phantom limb syndrome before launching  into a discussion about the way our brains perceive our bodies, and by extension, everything our bodies sense. The article suggests that the signals we get from our nervous system are really of remarkably poor quality, and that our minds fill in the blanks and out-of-focus bits from context, experience, and memory.  Sense and memory might be the same thing.