SensorsRoleAndFunctions

Role and functions of sensors

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What is the Sensor

No single agreed answer.

Certain:

it has inputs from the world external to brain - e.g. gets rainbow colors via eye
it has outputs connected to brain internals, providing the only inputs for its activity, including cases when sense generated mind activity which, in turn, generated another mind activity
it generally has receptors and nerve system to transfer information and control receptors, in other words nerve system adopts (models) received sensor data, which can be named a sort of processing
if examine saccades in vision (3 times per second) , we can state that sensors capture data from time to time, with quite different low-level images, and sleep in between capture actions (previous image neural activations are cleared); capture sequence can be quite different but reflects high-level world picture - thus decreasing a number of possible objects

Uncertain:

senses of own body - e.g. pain - can we say it is performed by sensors?
functions - what is the nature of processing inside sensor? Frog from one research has unconditonal reflexes inborn in the eye
we know that after eye surface there is eye nerve, connected to mind internals. Where the eye sensor boundaries? Does eye include eye nerve or it is part of mind?
do we treat sensor as part of mind, or it is external to the mind?
possible major mind functions, related to sensors are - capture, recognition, generalization, association, feedback (e.g. consider eye contact) - but what are own functions of sensors?
consider child reading book by letters and adult human reading text by words or even by sentenses; adult can read word by both letters and words, while child can only by letters. How it occurs?

sensor captures set of properties of external (to aHuman) world (external properties)
sensor captures properties from certain area of external world (capture area)
capture area can be changed up to some limits (current/maximum capture area)
sensor can capture only subset of its properties (capture resolution)
the more capture area, the less sensor resolution
sensor has control state managed by mind
control state defines current capture area and capture resolution
control state is exposed to external world (external properties of aHuman)
sensor works as active part, not by request, generating inbound stream of data
sensor does not perform recognition, generalization and association
sensor uses certain physical media to implement capture and feedback
sensor can be either polling, when capture occurs as a regular event, or event-driven, when capture occurs by changes of external world properties