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1. Abstract and synopsis of 2011 PhD thesis
“Conceptualising Experience:
What Human Expressions Suggest about Cognition”
ABSTRACT
The topic of the thesis is cognition. More specifically, its subjects are human conceptualisations
considered from the perspective of sensory experiences. These conceptualisations are investigated by
examining their material expressions such as those found in language, science and art, industrial
products and various other artefacts. The analysis of such expressions suggests the presence of two
distinct ways in which humans think: the multi-scale arrangement understood in terms of nested
scales (e.g. decimal system or tissues, organs and their systems) which suggests the process of
comparison; and the single-scale framework understood as a network (e.g. nets, sets and graphs)
which suggests the process of concatenation. When combined into a schema, these two processes
provide the basis for composite expressions such as a few tasty apples or 20 miles per hour
understood as associations of intensity/value within the smaller-scale unit with extent at the larger
scale. The framework can potentially explain many properties of human experience and its
expressions. Because such expressions are very common, I argue that the schema is likely to originate
from the brain’s sensory maps, understood as collections of specialised sensory cells (or their
surrogates) brought together to a common place in the brain to facilitate their interaction by means of
diffusion. The proposed interpretation of cognition places strong emphasis on the physical interactions
between individual cells of the collection which developed means to move together in order to protect
the integrity of the form which makes this movement possible. By investigating human expressions it
is possible to reveal the physical structure of cognition and see it as a process not that different to any
other physical process.
SYNOPSIS
While studying fine art, I became intrigued by the consistent use of diagonal lines in expressions of
movement; of the vertical orientation for conveying various notions of vitality; and of the horizontal
orientation for death and general absence of energy. On the basis of subsequent investigation of
expressions in fields other than fine art, I argue that the two canonical orientations are part of a more
general concept (described in the thesis as experiential schema) which connects intensity (or value)
with its extent – where values represent the properties of physical objects interpreted as units, and
intensity the sensory qualities referring to these objects, and where extent stands for the repetition of
the unit. This suggests the presence of at least two scales in human conceptualisations: the smaller

2. scale of the unit and the larger scale of the collection of units combined together into a single
expression such as two important issues or five tasty apples.
I also argue that the units in the schema can be experienced collectively (e.g. a monetary value of an
apple), publicly (a colour of the apple) or privately (a taste of the apple). In all three cases the
experience associated with the units is derived from a comparison process (which produces a nested
relationship in which the lesser intensity/value is contained by the greater one) and the experience of
extent from the concatenation process (in which spatial distances between units are ignored). This
suggests a more general definition of the experiential schema as the association of comparison within
the smaller scale of the unit with concatenation of units at the larger scale. Taken together, this
framework can potentially explain many common properties of human experience, such as:
1. Sense of vitality, discontinuity and instant jump expressed by vertical lines and understood as
the fixed extent of the unit and the continuously variable nature of its intensity (or value);
2. Sense of continuity, endless progression, expanse, stability, sameness and permanence
associated with states expressed by horizontal lines and understood as a variation of the extent while
intensity/value remains constant;
3. Sense of part/whole relationship as the constant sum of parts which are multiples of the basic
unit – only parts having the same intensity (or value) of some shared quality or property can form the
sum;
4. Notion of products as the experience of all unique associations between intensities (or values)
and their extent;
5. Sense of the object as a product of intensity (or value) and extent understood as the associative
area limited by the vertical and horizontal lines;
6. Content invariance of the sensory object under variation of its shape - understood as the
constant product of intensity (or value) and extent, and expressed as inverse proportionality;
7. Relational invariance of sensory objects under dilation expressed with diagonal lines and
understood as a case of the constant ratio of intensity (or value) to extent;
8. Sense of symmetry in the case of relational invariance in which intensity (or value) coincide
with the extent expressed as a diagonal of the square; and finally
9. Sense of variation expressed as non-linear functions understood as the variable associations
between intensity (or value) and extent.
When combined in various ways, these properties lead to many familiar experiences found in human
expressions. Out of the numerous examples of such experiences provided in the thesis, only the notion
of averages and categories, ratios and rates are analysed more comprehensively. In the context of
these findings, the use of canonical orientations in fine art, which I found so perplexing, can be

3. understood as an overt expression of the covert sensation in which intensity is associated with its
extent.
Because its expressions are so common, I argue that the experiential schema is likely to originate from
the brain’s sensory maps, understood as collections of specialised sensory cells (or their surrogates)
brought together to a common place in the brain to facilitate their interaction by means of diffusion.
All sensory representations in such maps can then be defined in terms of intensity within individual
sensory cells and the extent of all adjacent cells sharing similar enough intensity – where the source of
intensity within sensory cells is the receptor sensitive to spatial deformations of some quality, in
response to which it produces trains of action potentials propagated along the cells’ length.
If we ignore the connective tissues, all sensory cells could be considered as specialised elements of
the larger three-dimensional collection of individual cells which use sensation to coordinate their
position in space. This in turn means that cognition (understood as the ability to represent and act on
spatial relations that exist outside of the sentient collection) varies with the location of sensory cells
within the three-dimensional collection, such that the cells at the collection’s boundary can duplicate
these relations more directly, and hence relatively precisely, while the cells deeper inside the
collection create more complex reproductions affected by the collection’s own complicated anatomy.
The proposed interpretation of cognition places strong emphasis on the physical interactions between
individual cells of the collection, which developed means to move together in order to protect the
integrity of the form which makes this movement possible. By investigating human expressions, if
they are interpreted as personal accounts of the physical processes taking place in the individual’s
own body, it is possible to reveal the physical structure of cognition and see it as a process not that
different to any other physical process. ∎