How many senses do we have?

RisingEagle

Five, right? Sight, smell, touch, hearing and taste. According to the author of a book I was looking at recently we have at least eight. Those previously listed and these: The ability to sense heat or temperature, the ability to sense pain and awareness of the location of our body parts. The first one makes sense because I don't have to pick up a burning log to know it's hot or touch an icecube to know it's cold. I kind of agree with the second one also as I've eaten some bad oriental food before and had some severe stomach pain. I've been trying to get a handle on the last one though and I can only come up with two fer instances. If I have a ball in my left hand and after turning my head to the left throw the ball in the air, I can catch it in my right hand without looking at the ball. The other fer instance is someone that loses a limb and feels phantom itches or pains from the missing appendage. Do you think there are other senses that humans have and if so what are they?

Now that I think about it, what about senses that we lack that you feel humans should have? The ability for plumbers and construction workers to sense that half their backside is hanging out when bending over would be a good start IMO.

The ability to sense when not to start a nonsense thread would be nice, too.

erynw

Does the ability to detect BS spewing from Brooklyn count as smell or the ability to feel pain?

Gopher

Some people have another sense, called: common.

LtCmd.Lore

Sense: The faculty through which the external world is apprehended.

(Apprehended: Fully understood or grasped.)

By that definition, temperature should count as a seperate sense.

However I don't think sensing where your limbs are located should count, because that is not part of the 'external world'.

I have also heard that our immune system should be counted since, even though you are not concious of it, your cells are detecting/sensing the presence of harmfull substances. (But this is also not part of the 'external world' so I don't think it should count.)

You can also sense the pressure of the air or water.

I would like to be able to sense and emit radio waves. That would make mind operated machinery MUCH simpler.

Lore - W.W.S.D?

mkr32208

Hows about smellivision and gaydar?

erynw

My cat has tunar...the ability to hear a can-opener no matter where he is in the house or whether he is sleeping or awake.

Satanus

Sharks can sense the minute electrical signals put out by fish, and vibrations of animals in the water. That means they have seven senses.

S

AK - Jeff

According to Buddhism there are 6 not 5. Sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell, mental (apperception).

Jeff

MadTiger

There are multiple dimensions, and there are multiple senses. Some people are more tapped into the use of additional senses than others.

Several areas of the US government actually have psychics on the payroll. I am not just talking about police departments using them to find serial killers, etc. (a la "Unsolved Mysteries"). They are on the payroll for the FBI, CIA, etc. X-Files was dramatized, but the actual premise was not so far-fetched as you think. There are unclassified reports of some of the experiments and activities, if you need to Google them.

funkyderek

Pain, temperature, pressure and balance are the obvious ones. "Body awareness" and "internal senses" are also sometimes included. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senses for more details.

External instuments or "body hacking" can result in additional senses, such as the ability to see infra-red, a true sense of direction, or the ability to detect electric fields or wi-fi signals. Some info on body hacking here: http://www.bodyhacking.com/

How many senses do we have?

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