interoception

Compiled with AI assistance and selectively reviewed. Please consult the cited passages; the books remain the authoritative source. About this companion

Editorial synthesis · provisional

Definition

Interoception is sensing and mapping the body’s internal condition. In the Damasio-attributed account, visceral information supports regulation and feeling, with later work emphasizing reciprocal interaction between neural and non-neural tissues. It is selective rather than a complete internal readout, and its physiological role must be distinguished from the author’s separate interpretation of consciousness.

Explanation

RB2 describes signals from organs and bodily chemistry being mapped through peripheral and central structures. Its later account assigns a primary visceral role to brainstem organization, with the insula and somatosensory cortices also contributing. The entry should not flatten these source-specific distinctions into an undifferentiated claim that feelings simply happen in the cortex.

Damasio’s later hypothesis treats homeostatic feeling as a hybrid exchange: interoceptive neural activity commingles with tissues and chemistry, while neural responses alter the state represented. This differs from a detached inner reader inspecting a passive bodily report. The subject is partly constituted through the exchange it undergoes.

Selective bodily salience is not perfect physiological transparency. The source also separates Damasio’s account of producing experience from the author’s deflationary interpretation of reports. Borrowing the physiology therefore does not make Damasio an illusionist or establish that every system capable of describing bodily states feels them.

Scope and attribution

Retain the attributed main entry and distinguish artificial proposals from established feeling.

AB — The Actual Book

The note records later refinements and distinguishes sensing from feeling.

Occurrence locators: Notes: 240, 241.

RB2 — The Real Book, Volume II: Becoming Is Being

Visceral mapping becomes a reciprocal hybrid account with a separate philosophical verdict.

Occurrence locators: 13, 14, 15, 20, 30, 36, 37, 76, 115, 134.

RB3 — The Real Book, Volume III: Murmurations

Interoceptive artificial intelligence is a proposal concerning internal regulation.

Occurrence locators: 167.

Background used in the editorial explanation

Named theories and mechanisms are distinguished from neighboring background, homonyms and the author’s own synthesis. Reproduced AI passages retain their separate voice.