Approaches to the act of looking: The Plague of Azoth

Authors

Keywords:

neurosciences, neurology, observation of art, plague, sociobiology, vision.

Abstract

Contemporary neurosciences continue to separate the act of seeing in the processes of vision and the processes of ocular motor skills, without even proposing a unifying explanation of both aspects of the same reality: as the act of looking. The aim of this article is to explain the act of looking through the series of neurological events that occur and to understand that one looks with consciousness. Visual processes are explained based on the contemporary neuroscientific approach and Informational Sociobiological Theory in Nicolas Poussin's "The Plague of Azoth". While the traditional explanation traditional explanation of neuroscience refers that every stimulus activates a receptor, following a nervous path to the brain, from the Informational Sociobiological Theory, the act of looking is an epiconscious activity, a construction that results from the sum emerging from the five levels of complexity. These integrate this process in the movements that describe the eyes and the action of what is seen simultaneously. "The Plague of Azoth" shows a city plagued by the bubonic plague, with two traits: a divine curse and the presence of breathable miasmas. Poussin not only painted the grounds for a magical (traditional) and scientific explanation, but also for a technological (bacteriological) explanation that would emerge two centuries after his death. In conclusion, the act of looking from the Informational Sociobiological Theory is a process that begins in the neocortex and that integrates information at five levels. This explanation allows us to understand "The Plague of Azoth" as an advanced technological approach.

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Author Biographies

Jeel Moya-Salazar, Universidad Norbert Wiener

MT

MSc

MPH

MBBS

PhD

Hans Contreras-Pulache, Universidad Norbert Wiener

MBBS

MD

MPH

PhD

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Published

2023-01-17

How to Cite

1.
Moya-Salazar J, Contreras-Pulache H. Approaches to the act of looking: The Plague of Azoth. Rev Cubana Med Milit [Internet]. 2023 Jan. 17 [cited 2025 Apr. 2];52(1):e02301967. Available from: https://revmedmilitar.sld.cu/index.php/mil/article/view/1967

Issue

Vol. 52 No. 1 (2023): January - March

Section

Opinion Article

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