An Experience
n. the significant experience.
John Dewey, the American pragmatist philosopher put a fine point on the general term of experience. Rather than an all-encompassing, experience-at-large, Dewey separated those experiences of significance. There are the forgettable observations and participations of daily living, and then there are moments of impact that cause a stir in the soma. These events constitute an experience (Dewey, 1934).
In Dewey’s model, any experience that lacks cohesion through vague temporal connections, or rigid automatisms is characterized as an anti-experience, anaesthetic (Núñez-Pacheco, 2018). In his model, an interaction does not amount to an experience until the participant perceives the action and the action is believed to have intention.
It should be noted that (1) even a well-perceived succession of individual points in time does not guarantee experience with intention (trajectory), and (2) the proof of an experience lies in the actor (who may or may not be the designer). Cohesive experience requires the actor be in communion with the sounds, words, moving images, thoughts, or gestures and participate in the presentation as motion unfolding.
Experience is the result, the sign, and the reward of that interaction of organism and environment, which, when it is carried to the
full, is a transformation of interaction into participation and communication. (Dewey, 1934, p. 22)
Cohesion might be thought of as the essential parenthetical quality that defines an experience. An aspect of an experience is the nameable, articulate-able nature of that experience. Seeing the Mona Lisa, hearing Mahler’s 5th, having an ice cream cone…
see Inertia, Soma Literacy