The Creation of Sensation and the Evolution of Consciousness

There is nothing more crucial to the life of an organism than its nervous system. It is the source of all sensation, action, and motivation. In short, it is the mechanism that sustains life. Sensation is the nervous system's communications facility; it monitors all incoming events that impact the body and directs them to the brain where they can be analyzed and acted upon. To be precisely understood, the brain communicates in just one language-the language of "sensation." Universally used throughout the human nervous system, we see examples of sensation language in its messages to us, such as touch, taste, smell, sound and sight-our five senses. But these are only examples of its extensive use.

Sensation began with life, itself, and evolved from meager beginnings into its enormous variations in modern humans. Within all organisms, the occurrence of each sensation corresponds to a unit of consciousness.