This is an interesting question that Skyhook brought up in the Designer thread (abstractly speaking). This was actually sparked by his analogy to missing sparkplugs. I thought I'd post these questions in a thread of their own.

How many senses are their really? Most say there are five. Seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and touching.

Is this list complete?

If a man goes blind does he quit existing? Of course not, there are many blind humans in this world. Many of them have achieved great things. Using only their remaining four senses.

What if a person is also deaf? Well, Hellen Keller is a very famous example of someone who was both deaf and blind and she too was able to live a meaningful life.

Well, what if a blind and deaf person couldn't smell or taste either? Would they still be alive?

They sure would be if they could still sense things via touch.

But what if they lost that sense too. Would they then be dead? It seems they would have no more sparkplugs to lose.

Not necessarily. In theory they could still think, dream, and imagine. So thinking, dreaming, and imagination must necessarily be a 'sense' of sorts.

But what is it that is "sensing" thought? Does the body sense thought? Or does thought sense the body? If thought senses the body, then what is the essense of the thing that is sensing thought?

What sense do you make of these nonsensical thoughts?

I remember talking about this on a thread and believe it could be very possible we had a sixth sense at one time a very long time ago for survival purposes.

A long time ago I took that same reductionist approach and ended up with the question: How is it that we can "sense" senses. Can a sense sense itself?

And to broaden that same concept a bit, what about "awareness of awareness"?

It seems intiuitively true to me that we are aware that we are aware.

So what is it that is aware of awareness?

I concluded that it had to be either a nonsensical, circular self-reference, and thus a complete illusion from the git go, or there was a "bottom turtle" that is "me".

I choose the latter.

I knew I could count on you, Sky, to clear up this cosmic riddle.

From my perspective this is also the "bottom line" for the Eastern Mystics. Remove all the circular illusions and what's left is the real "you". That's the whole idea of "transcendental meditation". The idea is to transcend the senses and discover the one who senses.

These materialists who believe that we are an "emergent property" of form are left with nothing to sense the senses. Senses sensing senses in circular nonsense.

So I'm with you on this one!

Memory and cognition.

Remove all the senses and you are the observer with nothing to observe. You can somewhat duplicate this in a sensory deprivation tank.

What happens there is that your mind will begin to "hallucinate" or "dream" a world into existence that is totally removed from your body in the deprivation tank.

You could become totally involved in this dream world so much that you will soon mistake it for reality.

How many of you have felt "senses" while dreaming? I have. I have tasted chocolate, felt pain, smelled things, touched things... all things that were in my dream. These dream senses were not as intense as the ones I experience in this world but it is clear that I created my dream world and my senses myself from my mind.

So this tells me that the mind can create a reality. In fact this is PROOF that the mind can create a reality.

The question remains, can I share that dream reality or environment with another observer? I don't see why not.

Thoughts are vibrations after all, and if the thoughts of the person in the deprivation tank next to me happen to focus in on me then it is conceivable that that person could enter my dream environment, and even help me to perpetuate and sustain it.

Lets imagine that there are 50 people who are totally paralyzed and cannot move. Their physical bodies are not working, but their consciousness and brain still work. These 50 people are all in the same room all in their own tanks which sustain their physical bodies.

They might conceivably create and share a dream reality where they could manifest dream bodies, just as we manifest a dream body when we dream. They might be able to live their lives in a reality of their own making.

Okay take this a little further.... just as in the Matrix movie. How do you know that sort of thing is NOT already what we are doing?

The questions you ask and the subject matter you want to discuss are not made clear. We lack a philosophical premise from which to respond.

The premise that needs to be clarified are the characteristics that you are applying to humans. Are they only physical beings existing in a physical realm? Or are you attributing a non-physical element, such as an intelligent, pre-existing spirit as part of the characteristics of the humans you are discussing?

Knowing this makes a difference in how people will respond to the OP as well as to other posters.

Thanks in advance for answering this question, it might alleviate disagreements later which could disrupt an otherwise interesting discussion.

What could a person without ever having senses of any kind possibly experience?

I do not think that a normal person is a sensory deprivation chamber/exercise is a reasonable comparison to someone who has never had sensory experience.

Memories cannot exist without experience. The mind would not work without experience. There are well established windows of opportunity for certain cognitive functioning skills. That is why it is very important for a child to be talked to from the moment they are conceived, or at least from late in the second trimester.

Our mind needs stimulation to form the necessary connections required for successful reasoning/learning later on in life. The saying goes, neurons that fire together wire together. I do not usually use the computer analogy to describe the brain/mind, but in this case it works.



Point of it all...

Without physiological senses there would be nothing and no one to make sense of anyway.



Edited to add:

Good question Di!

I make no premises. I'm asking the question. It's up to you to come up with your own premises.

Creative clearly states his premises as though they are strict assertions that everyone must accept. I don't accept his assertions. I see no reason to. He's just stating opinions and demanding that that they must be accepted as facts yet he has nothing to back them up. We have absolutely no way of verifying his claims. They are just his guesses. His unproven premises. I see no reason to buy into his guesses.

Sky's reasoning made far more sense to me.

But clearly to each their own.

Thank-you Abra, I think this could be a good exercise in tolerance and in understanding other philosophies. I like it.

Creative, While I agree with you from a strictly physical point of view, there are other points of view which you have not considered.

Some may believe that the physical is merely an illusion - a type of design which was created by non-physical variables for the purpose of experiencing a physical realm.

From that perspective the physical parts are like props or vehicles. Some are capable of role playing as in interacting with other like components of the illusion.

In this case senses are simply a stimulation created for a fuller quality of experience. They are not neceassry as higher brain functions, as you and I would describe them, are actually irrelevent.

For example, a non-physical being could inhabit a rock and still have a physical experience, but it would not include the same sensations that human was arranged or programmed to emit.

So in this case, the non-physical variable, just deals with a loss of one, two or all senses and/or even mobility to complete the cycle of the experience.

So the answer to the OP is that it doesn't matter what is experienced, whether the vehicle functions to its fullest capacity or not, because the non-physical variable is really the only intelligence and it is not even intrinsically part of the vehicle.

Thank you for that very great reply Di.

I see that you do at least understand the philosophy I'm attempting to get at, even if you may not personally embrace it.

I confess that it's not an easy philosophy. It's like they often say about the Tao. If you attempt to describe it, it's not the Tao.

But I do the best I can anyway.

double post.

I agree. I am using a sensory deprivation chamber as a physical example to ponder. In that case, the person with no senses will hallucinate.

Okay if that person has memories, his hallucinations or dreams will probably resemble what he knows and has experienced.

Now take a person born with no senses at all. None. He has never seen, felt, touched, smelled, or heard anything.

What would this mind or person hallucinate?

The possibilities are infinite. This mind still exists. It will manifest something. I won't pretend to have any idea what.



You do not know this. And of course you would think this because your definition of "self" goes no further than the body, brain and mind, which you believe is a product of the brain. This is your belief or premise. I believe you are mistaken.



It must feel good to be so sure of yourself in the stating of these assertions.

However, I disagree with them.

no evidence to suggest anything more than the five senses. when one is lost, blind for instance, the remaining senses become more accute often but not always. if there is a sixth sense or more, i'm not convinced of the notion.

Normal humans have 10 senses.

http://fac.hsu.edu/langlet/general/guides/Terms_sensation_perception.htm



http://www.thefreedictionary.com/senses


Dreaming, imagination and memory are facets of cognition, not senses.

Yes, I understand this technical definition. But philosophically speaking what is it that "senses" congnition? I guess that's the real question here.

As Sky puts it, what is it that is aware of being aware?

Awareness.

Your question makes no sense to me. Your awareness makes you aware. There is no extra sense that says "Hey, I know you are aware, but just wanted to tell you, you are aware."

Well, I'm trying anyway. You, JB, and Sky have such varied philosophies and yet the three of you find enough commonality to support each others ideas. So I'm just trying to find the most common ground to all of you, so that we can communicate.

I like 'common ground'...





Have not, or are not currently?