6th (or 7th, 8th) sense?

N

Nebula

Occasionally Frequent
Registered Senior Member
I have always postulated this idea and when a friend brought up a similar idea today I decided that I'm not crazy and maybe you fine folks think about this kind of thing too.

Do you think there is some other way that organisms can interpret the universe by way of sense? Like, may we have a hidden sense? Right now we can see, touch, taste, smell, and hear. What if there are other ways to recieve stimuli that an organism has not yet developed?

I think it is quite possible. It may be hard to believe, but in a way that makes it all the more likely. If there IS a hidden sense, we would have no way of comprehending what it is at this point. Perhaps though it could have something to do with mind-links or something, or maybe another type of "vision" that can detect/interpret other wavelengths of the EM spectrum. What does ya'll think?

Thanks ;)
 
See I feel the main issue with the concept of a hidden sense is that it is contradictory. A hidden sense, IE we cannnot always use it or even some can never use it. To know a sense exists we must be able to use it/percieve our reality with it. So if there is a hidden sense then it must be a mutation or something that does not show up in everyone, humanity evolving. I believe it could be a possibility but as far as knowing things we cannot or "seeing the future" I do not have a clue how one would explain scientifically how one could pick up on such things, IE what our sense is reading.

PEACE OUT ~Cactus
 
Feelings that you are being observed, deja vu, a sense of foreboding and the list goes on.
Are these dormant senses which are now manifesting more frequently as the species ages or another step in evolution brought on by the pressure of the world around us.
Every person (and most animals) have experienced at one time or another one of these; feelings or senses.


Just remember! WE ARE WATCHING YOU:eek:
 
Greetings Nebula,

A "sense" is an interface which coveys information about the physical world to our brain. With the use of technology we are able to extend the number of senses we were born with. A radio extends our sense to include the electomagnetic spectrum below the infra-red. We have transducers that extend our senses above the ultra-violet as well; into the spectrum of x-ray and gamma radiation. A search is underway that we might be able to sense gravity waves, etc. Work is also taking place with the aim of bypassing the usual five senses, by directly stimulating our brain with electrical impulses. The spectrum and sensitivity of our senses is growing rapidly through technology.

Nebula, I don't share your idea that we are endowed at birth with as-yet, unknown senses. A mechanism that allows us to sense things in the physical world must have at one foot inside the physical world it senses. In our case, the implication is that at least part of the mechanism is made of meat, or at least connects with meat. By now we've made exhaustive dissections and scans of the human brain. There don't appear to be too many left-over pieces.

Researcher's follow up nearly every credible lead. For example, there have been suggestions that we might have a compass built-in our heads in the form of magnetic iron particles. It came as little surprise to me that experiments failed to prove that humans have a workable internal magnetic compass. If you spun me around three times inside a carboard box, I'd have no clue which way is North. Yet, if I had time to think about it, I could probably fashion a compass from a bit of metal in my belt buckle that would align with the earth's magnetic lines-of-flux. That is, I could build a device to create, in effect, a sixth sense.

Cactus Jack made the excellent observation that a sense is only useful if it delivers quality sensory information to our brain. If a Hippopotamus is charging towards me, my senses would be worth precious little if they only gave me a fuzzy, or nebulous feeling that I might be in some sort of danger.

In reply to a friend's suggestion, I performed an unscientific "experiment" last winter. One quiet evening as my wife and I were reading, without noticably looking up from my book I began to mentally scream her name. I did everything I could think of to "quietly" attract her attention. I kept this up for nearly half of a minute. She never as much as glanced away from her book. My friend had suggested that since my wife and I have spent a good deal of our last 25 years together, that we might have developed another form of communication. My simple "experiment" indicates that if we have formed another method of communication, it's worth "a whole lot of nothing."

The unconscious mind is the power-house computer in our head. Yet it only provides our conscious mind with what it decides is useful to us. The information we are conscious of has been drastically filtered. Our unconscious mind knows far more about the world than it ever bothers to tell our conscious mind about. I believe this is the reason for our occasional "spooky feeling" that we know more than we ought to know. I believe the mind is a vastly complex piece of equipment, whose inner-workings will ultimately be explained in quite simple terms. We've already made fantastic progress in this direction.

So, I don't think you're crazy either, Nebula. Your question shows that you are thinking.

Michael
 
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Extra Senses

You know many is the time I wished that I had that "something extra", that would give me a clue as to what I should do or how someone was feeling.

I found that I didn't and would just have to blunder through with what I have. In the long run prehaps it is best. I really don't want to know when someone just thinks I am a jerk but doesn't actually say it.

To give forth another thought, many a living has been made by those who would have you believe they know what you don't because you don't have the equipment in place to learn. They can tell your future, for a price, of course.

My departed father used to believe that a whipperwill outside the window at night, singing his song, told of a departed loved one or of some emminent danger to the family. We were to go to a funeral of one of his friends when he heard the whipperwill that night before. We didn't go the next day. Later we heard that someone had driven through the funeral prossesion and it resulted in a death. Daddy always believed that place in line was ours had we been there. Was this a 6th sense? A superstition? or what?

I tend to believe that it was supersitition. That we have all the senses we're are going to have unless someone invents something that allows us to see things in another light. We, as people, have had plenty of time to find them if they existed. Just like you found out how to remember or move your arm. If it is there we should already know it. That we don't indicates to me we have all we are going to have. Strangely, I find that comforting. After all, the next time your friends think you are "really out there" but don't say it because they consider you feelings, Would you really want to know it?
 
Perhaps it are not hidden senses (multiple or single, whatever), perhaps it's just the way you feel others, perceive others and other life-forms than the usual closed minded common sense that's spread around in this world. Isn't it so that a lot of natives, in all kind of countries actually do know whether they're in danger and which way to go to find their way home. Not by using the names, North, South, East and West, for instance, just by knowing which way to go. Guess it's more a feeling deep down inside of them which leads them home.

As is the feeling some people have that their friends or others are thinking they are "really out there". It is not so hard to tell, because body expressions and looks in their eyes give them away while they are thinking you are "really out there". Just a matter of noticing it. Perceiving it.

Then it is not a matter whether you want to know it or not, it's just a matter of perceiving and nothing can prevent you from it. Learn to close yourself down as much as possible is one way, speak it out loud is another and so there is a lot more to say about it.

Superstition is something completely different...
 
Some physiologists identify more than the normal 5 senses.

For example, there is a vestibular sense -sense of head orientation towards the ground

Another identified one is limb position.
 
I can sense when the TV is on in my house, but thats now become instinct as I immediatly recognise the distinct, if barely audio, sound. But that comes under sound.
People can sense when someone walks into a room or have a 'feeling' that they are being watched. What if senses are developed instincts that we have been practising unwittingly.
 
In this consumption society from nowadays, a lot of Inner Senses are ignored. People rely more on the visible, "scientific" things which come on their path than that they really listen to what their Inner feelings have to say. It is easier to ignore certain feelings of coming danger and if someone is to be trusted or not. They meet people and because others say these people are alright, they asume this is so.

Often, your first feeling towards another person is right, whether it gives you a feeling of uneasiness or not. It's still a case of perceiving, of seeing through the true colours of someone else. I think this is a sense which is much ignored, it is always there though.

Question is: What happened to the true Inner Senses of people that they do not listen to them anymore? To be sure they are not out of tune? To belong with the majority, who seem to think they can make conclusions in life, only based on as far as the eye can see..?
 
Feelings that you are being observed, deja vu, a sense of foreboding and the list goes on...
Click to expand...

To me, there are 5 senses, and all the rest of the "made up" ones are just a combination of the 5. When people say they can feel someone walk into a room, that might as well go under Hearing, or Touch. The subconscious has already sensed the air currents, minor noises, maybe even body temperature, different smells, and perhaps light alteration by the approaching body. The subconscious senses many things that don't even pass into our conscious. It all sort of collects in there, randomly piecing information together provided by our senses and whatever we've got stored in our brain. When it enters our conscious, we get a "feeling", and you turn around to see your friend trying to sneak up on you.
 
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