Personal Narrative: The Sixth Sense

The human brain is capable of perceiving and interpreting information or stimuli received through the sense organs (i.e., eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and skin) (Weiten, 1998). This ability to perceive and interpret stimulus allows the human being to make meaningful sense of the world and environment around them. However, even as the human being is able to perceive and interpret stimuli information through all sense organs, stimuli is most often or primarily interpreted using the visual (eyes) and auditory (ears) sense organs (Anderson, 2009). However, for the purpose of this paper, the visual information process will be examined.

Senses can manipulate your awareness of reality. As stated in Incognito, "So the first lesson about trusting your senses is: don't. Just because you believe something to be true, just because you know it's true, that doesn't mean it is true. " For example, anosognosia known, as a “lack of insight” is a disease that misleads people into thinking there is no problems with them.

Senses are society's main boundaries and as we grow old we understand and try to cope with the life we carry.

one of the five natural powers (touch, taste, smell, sight, and hearing) through which you receive information about the world around you

There are six senses in total and these are known as languages of the mind, or ‘modalities’. These are Sight, hearing, feeling, smell and taste, although the last two can be put into the ‘feeling’ category. We use all of our senses in a particular situation but all of us will have a favourite which we are more comfortable with and are likely to fall back on in times of crisis. (Chrysalis pg. 4)

We often perceive sight as our immediate and best tool for understanding the world around us, when in fact, it is not. There are other methods of understanding that go beyond our senses, methods that most people are unable to comprehend. In his short story “Cathedral”, Raymond Carver uses point of view to suggest that there are ways to perceive and understand something beyond just seeing it. In fact, Carver suggests not only that sight is only the most basic level of understanding, but also that true understanding comes from a feeling that is not one of any our five senses.

Emily Gilbert Mr. Dewey TOK Essay- Prompt X Oct 24, 2016 In order to gain knowledge of how the world really is, we need to use our senses to capture it in our own perspective. However, this is only to an extent. Everyone uses their senses when they are going about their daily lives, and since everyone is different, each person gains different information from each sense than the person standing next to them.

These senses are the avenues by which the stimuli around us can be absorbed and translated into our perception. However, certain characteristics of sense perception as a basis for attaining knowledge about our reality can raise problems. This is because it is subjective and relative; it varies with condition and can be external to the object perceived.

Biologists have long realized that the noses of most vertebrates actually contain two sensory channels. The first is the familiar olfactory system, which humans possess. The second channel is the vomeronasal complex, a system that has its own separate organs, nerves, and connecting structures in the brain. The function of the vomeronasal system is the detection of pheromones, chemical messengers that carry information between individuals of the same species. It was widely believed (as I found in some of the older texts I examined) that humans had long ago discarded this sensory system

In my Philosophy class, we are learning about Descartes. Descartes is a man of reasoning, and he thinks senses are unreliable. It is very interesting to acknowledge

Human beings have the ability to create their own individual worlds through imagination. However, the imagination is limited because of the constant use of technology and the reliance on vision. The technological culture has separated humans from the actual world and their senses; much like vision has done. In the essay “The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses”, Juhani Pallasmaa focuses on the exploration of the senses and how they interact with one another. We also see his discussion on how vision can affect the human experience. The more visually capable we are, the more we begin to lose our sense of imagination. Similarly in the essay

Sight is one of the five senses, without it we would not be physically able to see. Our nose, our ears, our taste, nor our touch is nearly enough to carry out the occupation of sight. In addition, sight is one of the

We all learn that we have only five senses, but when we grow up and start to understand the real word and think outside the box, we start questioning our second