It is simply wrong to describe touch and proprioception receptors as 2D.

a) In a technical sense the actual receptors are 1D, not 2D. Perhaps some of them are two dimensional, but generally mechanical touch is about pressure or tension in a single direction or axis.

b) The rods and cones in your eyes are also 1D receptors but they combine to give a direct 2D image, and then higher-level processing infers depth. But touch and proprioception combine to give a direct 3D image.

Maybe you mean that the surface of the skin is two dimensional and so is touch? But the brain does not separate touch on the hand from its knowledge of where the hand is in space. Intentionally confusing this system is the basis of the "rubber hand illusion" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_transfer_illusion

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Nevermark 6 days ago | parent [-]

I think you mean 0D for individual receptors.

Point (I.e. single point/element) receptors, that encode a single magnitude of perception, each.

The cochlea could be thought of 1D. Magnitude (audio volume) measured across 1D = N frequencies. So a 1D vector.

Vision and (locally) touch/pressure/heat maps would be 2D, together.

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AIPedant 6 days ago | parent [-]

No, the sensors measure a continuum of force or displacement along a line or rotational axis, 1D is correct.

	▲	Nevermark 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		That would be a different use of dimension. The measurement of any one of those is a 0 dimensional tensor, a single number. But then you are right, what. is being measured by that one sensor is 1 dimensional. But all single sensors measure across a 1 dimensional variable. Whether it’s linear pressure, rotation, light intensity, audio volume at 1 frequency, etc.