Phenomenology of perception, from stimuli to their interpretation

Abstract

Receptors systems are our window on the world, the tools that relate us to the outside world and allow us to orient ourselves in all the activities that are fundamental for our survival. Thanks to the receptor systems we have the awareness and consciousness of human beings and have acquired the knowledge of the world in which we live. Receptors have a fundamental role to play in the birth of culture and the science of peoples. In addition to having an informative function of environmental conditions, the receptors perform an important protective and defensive activity for the living. In fact, they have the ability to make us recognize useful substances from harmful ones based on their organoleptic characteristics, color, smell, flavor, favoring the consumption of the first, preventing that of the second. They also form a second protective barrier at the level of the cell membrane by selecting the entry of unnecessary and potentially harmful substances and preventing their absorption through selective cellular channels. By means of channel proteins and ion exchange proteins (for example sodium-potassium), they maintain the optimal concentration of solutes in the cell. Finally, they guide the intra and interspecific relations between all living beings, from plants to man. We owe our existence to the reception systems. In this article we are going to examine the receptor systems describing the importance they have had in the evolution of the living and we are going to critically discuss the most recent theories proposed by quantum mechanics to explain their functioning.