A Discussion on the Possibilities of other Senses.

reply to post by kennyb72

Our senses would be meaningless if we hadn't had experiences
that match what we are currently seeing, hearing etc

...wait, what?

What "experiences" do you have to match other than those of your senses...?

reply to post by LordBucket

I probably missed some detail in my train of thought.

Quick example, If you suddenly became alive today and opened your eyes, nothing would make any sense. It is only our experiences that tell us a tree is a tree or red is red.

Hope that clears it up.

Ah, Canine.

When you're choosing courses, you may wish to consider perceptual psychology.

"Five" senses are just a classical classification, like the "seven liberal arts." It is handy for poets to have a short list, but there is no scientific foundation. And, of course, there are no rules about composing distinguishable senses (morphologically different sensors or different processing) into one sense (there are many varieties of touch and sight, for instance), as convenience suits.

With respect to "vibration," I think you are talking about vestibular or proprioceptive sensations (for "vibes" like shaking, being shaken, or both). But maybe not. Sound is obviously a vibratory phenomenon, and hearing is one of the classical five.

Anyway, you can run the total number of sensory modalities up into the twenties, no sweat. There's no speculation involved, it's just a question of whether cutting the world up that way is useful or not, which varies with your purpose.

reply to post by Doc Velocity


Wow! Thanks for the info. I thought everybody heard them.
I guess I'm even weirder than I thought.

Originally posted by Dogdish
Wow! Thanks for the info. I thought everybody heard [electrophonic meteor sounds].
I guess I'm even weirder than I thought.

Well, physicist theorize like crazy about the cause of this phenomenon — but, as I said, they can't reproduce the phenomenon in the lab, and they can't explain why 2 people in a group can hear such impossible noises, but the rest of the group can't hear the noise.

The physicists explanations are amusing, but so far unprovable... For instance, the prevailing theory is that ionized meteors give off VLF (very low frequency) radio waves, which instantly vibrate something on the ground nearby the observer.

That is to say, as a meteor streaks by overhead, its VLF radio emissions will cause maybe a nearby sheet of tin to vibrate audibly.

They even suggest that a person's hair can be caused to vibrate audibly from VLF radio emissions. Problem is, scientists can't replicate the effect in a lab, nor build a VLF receiver that can pick up meteor noises.

During Earth's annual passage through the Leonids, amateur astronomers sometimes gather in groups to view and record and applaud the accompanying meteor shower. In 2001, as mentioned in the NASA article I posted earlier, some of these amateur astronomers were definitely hearing the meteors as they zipped past overhead; however, other astronomers in the same group were not hearing the meteors.

So much for vibrating sheets of tin and vibrating hair.

The simplest explanation is that some people have a more highly-developed sensitivity to a very narrow band of radio emissions — that their brains are picking up electromagnetic and/or radio energy and converting it into "hearing" information.

Verily, a sixth sense.


!!!


— Doc Velocity






[edit on 12/25/2009 by Doc Velocity]