I'm reading a not very readable book by Antonio Damasio which makes a specifically linguistic point about the ambiguity in the word 'feeling', and the corresponding ambiguity in the Latin, but I forget what the exact point was; and as a linguist I wasn't too impressed.

I don't know of a language that specifically distinguishes these, without overlap, but then it's not the sort of thing that you'd pick up with a superficial knowledge of a language. That is, I know nothing about how non-European languages encode these things, and a quick glance at a dictionary would not help. If it said X = 'feel, sense' what would you learn? Does anyone out there know any non-European language well? Bingley on Indonesian, perhaps?

However, the theory behind Damasio's book does seem to be the direction the science is going: that thought and interior feelings originated over evolutionary time from rehearsals of external feelings. By being able to simulate what a cut finger would feel like, using many of the same brain circuits as come from the actual finger, you can judge whether it would be good or bad to cut your finger, without having to actually do it. The simulation in the brain goes both ways and feeds back into the efferent nerves so you do get some physical effect of twitching your finger in response if you think about it.

Damasio's the expert on this, but I just wish he could write a bit more like Richard Dawkins, so I'd have a chance of finishing it (and agreeing more than I presently do, because I still think he's mixing up good neurophysiology with not-so-good philosophy).