#physical experiences

I have recently acquired a number of books to aid in my research surrounding the topics of psychology and the constructed environment. However, I have chosen to begin with a book that I have had for quite some time and neglected to read. In “The Thinking Hand,” Juhani Pallasmaa argues against the “Cartesian duality of body and mind,” exploring the crucial role the hand plays not only in our construction of the world around us, but in our perception of it as well.

His introduction, “Embodied Existence and Sensory Thought,” has put me in a place of contemplation about the many tangents I might explore. I feel drawn to take up and pursue his argument that the “fundamental, unconscious, situational and tacit understanding of the body in the making of architecture is grossly undervalued.” There is also evidence in this essay to support the same being said of elements down to the least significant products around us. We are not only things made up of our thoughts and the resultant conceptual understandings encased in the body as a vessel. We are a direct result of our physical experiences. The world exists around us as a product of our many senses, without which our capacity for thought would either be greatly reduced or nonexistent. And so if I were to begin a list of bullet points to keep in mind here and now, the first would be,

• Stress the importance of experiencing a physical world. It is this physical experience that defines our understanding of our many environments. We use those physical experiences as subconscious thought processes, automatically responding to sensory information.

But I should take my own words up to this point with a grain of salt. I am still in shallow water.

I have fewer thoughts on his first formal essay in the book, “The Mysterious Hand.” But that doesn’t devalue the writing. He lays out very clearly the importance and complex context of the hand throughout history. He notes its significant role in our evolution, attributing the roots of our brain growth and expansion to the hand and development of tools. And although recent research may reveal that cooked food could be the true root of our brain’s evolution, there is nothing to say to remove the hand or tools as a responsible party in that development. Anyway, the point is that the hand has always had a hand in things.