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Abstract
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Consciousness is objectively described as psychonic energy, necessarily generated at every synapse in the central nervous system upon passage of impulses from neuron to neuron. The connective, or junctional tissue at the synapses capable of giving rise to psychonic energy, is termed, at any individual synapse, a psychon. There are two types of cell structure and two types of general synaptic arrangement, that at the sensory psychons being sensation, the motor psychons motation. There has been much confusion between the statements that emotion is sensation and that the awareness of a reaction occurring is emotion. Physiologists, in disproving the sensory-content statement of James' theory, conclude that emotion consists of a distinctive pattern of neurons in the central nervous system, excited to activity by initial response to the stimulus. Application of the physiologists' conclusion to James' original formulation of his theory can be made with perfect harmony if motation be accepted as a basic unit of consciousness on equal terms with sensation. Emotions might be defined quite simply as composed of designated groups of motations, characteristically combined. Pleasantness might be defined as alliance of simple motations, and unpleasantness as conflict of simple motations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)
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