A Natural History of the Senses

Introduction

• There is no way in which to understand the world without first detecting it through the radar-net of our senses. We can extend our sense with the help of microscope, stethoscope, robot, satellite, hearing aid, eyeglasses, and such, but what is beyond our senses we cannot know. Our sense define the edge of consciousness, and because we are born, explorers and questors after the unknown, we spend a lot of our lives pacing that windswept perimeter.
• Our sense connect us intimately to the past, connect us in ways that most of our cherished ideas never could.

The sense don't just make sense of life in bold or subtle acts of clarity, they tear reality apart into vibrant morsels and reassemble them into a meaningful pattern. They take contingency sample. They allow an instance to stand for a mob. They negotiate and settle for a reasonable version and make small, delicate transactions. Life showers over everything, radiant, gushing. The senses feed shards of information to the brain like microscopic pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

• When we describe ourselves as "sentient" beings, we mean that we are conscious. The more literal and encompassing meaning is that we have sense perception.

Smell

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Touch

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Taste

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Hearing

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Vision

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Synesthenia

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Postscript

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