Habituation of need converts pain into the interpretive power that makes animals inventive

Evidence

The blunting of sensation has as its correlative an increase in judgement and discrimination. For example, the more the animal develops and becomes stronger, the greater its skill at discovering the places where water is readily to be found. The animal senses the power of water through signs unlike the signs that alert the thirsty animal to its need. As the displeasure caused by thirst becomes something habitually acknowledged, the animal becomes capable of interpreting its warning signs, and through these signs it can advance a step beyond its immediate surroundings. Thus the animal becomes a being who invents. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 532

Categorization

• XREF: Applies to the plasticity thread: blunting-as-gain inverts the receptor-enemy binary — passivity converted into agency, relevant to the MOC question of what tips plastic receptivity into explosiveness.
• DEFINE: Defines habit’s paradoxical function: what numbs sensation simultaneously sharpens discrimination, a causal mechanism, not mere observation.