So, while I was finishing up the VISUAL MUSIC article, I had an idea:
Isn't the whole notion of having 5 different discrete senses really convoluted? Perhaps these five different senses are you just one sense. When you get into the specific mechanics of each sensual experience, they all seem to emulate touch.
Touch: contact between the body and an object triggers nerve impulse that relays sensory information to the brain.
Taste: your taste buds come into contact with different types of food and send a nerve impulse to the brain.
Smell: Fine nose cilia come into contact with airborne substances, sending sensory information to the brain.
Sight: Light enters the eye, which can detect tiny differences in wavelength and frequency. This information travels through two large optic nerves to the brain.
Sound: Objects vibrate at a frequency that resonates in the air, which in turn resonates against the nerves arrayed along our ear canals. These nerves relay the differences in wavelength and frequency to the brain.
It seems that the only difference between the senses is the point at which our body comes into contact with external stimuli. mechanically speaking its all very similar, until you start to think about what happens in the mind.
The mind is hard to relate to a physical model, I think that's where all this sensory stimuli becomes integrated, and discriminated.
I see, I hear, I smell, I taste, I touch but what's the difference? I don't think a clear distinction can be made between any of these sensations, can it?
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perhpas not, said Descartes (cogito ergo sum) but the problem may not be with deciphering our own sensory experiences but comes in when we try to describe these experiences to others. Each sensory experience has it own set of limitations and descriptors, which we try to express using language, color, vibration, materials in space, etc. Re: synaesthesia, I dont think the important part is whether or not any person has some quantifiable evidence taht this sound equals this color. It's about our attempts to translate our experiences into matter. We are trying to make the invisible visible.
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