Scientists once saw itching as a form of pain. They now believe it to be a different order of sensation, one which suggests that perception is more than mere reception. Perception is inference. Atul Gawande explains the “brain’s best guess” theory of perception:
Perception is the brain’s best guess about what is happening in the outside world. The mind integrates scattered, weak, rudimentary signals from a variety of sensory channels, information from past experiences, and hard-wired processes, and produces a sensory experience full of brain-provided color, sound, texture, and meaning.
Criticism, laments Martin Meis, no longer defines what is good and bad in culture, and he blames new media. “Basically, culture has been democratized. It has been flattened out and multiplied. There are no longer real distinctions between high and low. There’s just more.” What he laments is not so much the demise of criticism per se, which is actually quite robust, but rather the demise of the influence of professional critics and the sanctity of their domain. But if the relationship between amateur and professional critic has flattened, so too has the relationship between critic and artist. Participation is a two-way street. Martin Weis on the personal impact made by literary critic James Wood’s essay, “What Chekhov Meant By Life”: