 Dewey criticized the reflex arc framework on several grounds. First, events (sensory stimulus, central response, and act) are artificially separated for the purpose of analysis. “The reflex arc”, Dewey wrote, “is not a comprehensive, or organic unity, but a patchwork of disjointed parts, a mechanical conjunction of unallied processes” (RAC, EW5: 97). Second, the model falsifies the nature of genuine interaction; organisms do not passively receive stimuli and then actively respond; rather, organisms continuously interact with environments in cumulative and modifying ways. The child who encounters a candle is already actively exploring, anticipating a room, for example; noticing the flame modifies already ongoing actions. “The real beginning is with the act of seeing; it is looking, and not a sensation of light” (RAC, EW5: 97). Third, and relatedly, the model is too rigid in designating certain events as the stimulus or the response—in a word, it “reifies” them. Because events studied are enmeshed in a wider, ongoing activity matrix, other designations (of “cause” or “event”) could be plausible, contingent on the aims of some other experimental inquiry. Effectively, Dewey pointed out how the reflex arc model, intending to shed metaphysical assumptions, had inadvertently imported new and different ones. We are seeking to discover, Dewey wrote, “what stimulus or sensation, what movement and response mean” and we are finding that “they mean distinctions of flexible function only, not of fixed existence” (RAC, EW5: 102; emphasis mine). This suggestion is pragmatic; it says, rather than seeking an underlying reality (pure stimulus, pure response), look to meanings. In doing so, it is evident that terms such as stimulus, response, sensation, and movement “mean distinctions of flexible function only, not of fixed existence” (RAC, EW5: 102). The meaning of terms is grasped by recognizing their functions as acts in a wider, dynamic context which includes aims and  interests.[4] 