Five Senses and Nine Planets... Right? I Disagree.

Everyone knows about the "Five Senses".  We're taught at a very young age to understand these five basic input methods and to utilize them the best we can in our daily life in order to best understand the world around us:

Sight

Sound

Smell

Taste

Touch

Sometime what we learn in school can be limiting, however.  Especially things that we learn at a very young age and, for the remainder of our lives, believe to be true.  When I was little I was also taught that there were "Nine planets"... that has been the topic of several astronomical discussions over the past 10 years or so, and it is clearly an issue of the actual definition of the word "planet".  No one wants to add more planets to the "line-up" just because there's... only supposed to be nine!

You see what I'm saying, right?  It's a social, sometimes psychological struggle to shift one's paradigm from believing one thing, to believing something different.  Once a belief, or a fundamental understanding of something is ingrained into our minds, it can be VERY difficult to change that belief.

I believe that there are more than five senses.  And before you go directly to the comments section for your rebuttal, hear me out.  Again, this debate will lie in the definition of the word "sense" and whether or not each "sense" has a dedicated organ.  But to me, a sense can be related to a "channel" for information input, not necessarily an organ.

Some other senses I believe that we, as a human race, have and should be exploring and encouraging are:

Echolocation

Proprioception

Interoception

Equilibrioception

Pressure

"Extra" Sensory Perception (ESP)

Echolocation - Obviously, this is the first one I'm going to discuss.  As far as organs go, this sense uses primarily the ears, but I believe it also uses the nervous receptors in the skin as well ("touch"), as vibrations and pressures from sound can easily be felt on the skin.


Proprioception - This is the sense of the physical positioning of one's own body; joints, limbs, orientation, etc.  We talk about this in depth in martial arts classes.  If you close your eyes and move your arms around, you have the sense of where they are.  It's an interesting sense and you can read more in this article on proprioception written by Bruce Lee's daughter, Shannon.  Some people have been known to lose this sense due to brain injury or other trauma and it is completely debilitating.


Interoception - This is our sense of the physiological well-being of our bodies.  It's how we sense our stress levels, our mood, disposition, etc.


Equilibrioception - Our sense of balance, called equilibrioception, makes use of our eyes, ears and sense of proprioception, above.


Altitude - When we have a head cold our ear drums generally are generally very sensitive and can even pick up on slight pressure changes due to altitude.  A similar feeling can be experienced when scuba diving as the water pressure changes when you dive deeper.  Didn't think you had a built in altimeter (or depth meter) did you?


ESP - An amazing sense that may be controversial and experienced differently by different people.  I know I've experienced certain intuitions that I can't describe.  I believe that information can be transmitted many other forms.  What are your thoughts?


I think this list is probably the tip of the iceberg and if you can think of more, please post in the comments!

I think it would be best to teach children about the "Senses" as opposed to the "Five Senses".  This would eliminate the psychological limitations for future generations.  If a new sense, is discovered, or developed, it would be in our best interest as a species to teach and further develop that sense.

Learning Echolocation - A Moment of Clarity!

In my daily echolocation training, I routinely close my eyes while walking down the hallway in my office building.  It helps when it is very quiet and there aren't any other people walking around (for many reasons..).  Generally I just allow my ears to open up and notice the differences in the sounds depending on where I am in the hallway, what type of pants I'm wearing (I find that my pant legs brushing against each other actually act as a pretty good beacon sound), which shoes I'm wearing, weather I'm walking on a carpeted or non-carpeted area, etc.

After becoming aware of these subtleties, you can start to realize where the walls are by the sounds reflecting from them.  It's not too hard to be able to stay aligned in the middle of the hallway using this basic echolocation method.

Today I had a bit different experience.  In my building, there are several bends in the hallway which are generally more difficult to detect.  A right angle turn is easy, because you will suddenly notice a "hollow-ness" off to one side and you will know that the hallway opens up to that side.  However my hallway has several 45 degree bends which are much more difficult and I generally am too confused by the signal change to know exactly when the turn is coming.  Today as I approached one of these 45 degree hallway bends I kept an open awareness to all of the signals coming in, but tried not to think about it too much. When I did this and approached the bend, I felt a complete shift in my subconscious understanding of where I was.  It was as if the whole environment shifted around me.  I actually felt the walls and I felt the opening ahead of me simply change position.  My body understood the change and almost automatically course corrected.

I think something I've been struggling with is over analyzing the actual science of what's happening and not just being aware of the big picture.  Today I learned that it's easy to over analyze and start thinking about all the actual sounds instead of just feeling your surroundings.  Try not worrying about the details so much and just "relax into it".

I'm certain that confidence played a role in being able to ignore some of the details and relax, so it's still important to simply close your eyes and walk around even if you have no sense of echolocation and have no idea what you're listening for.  This will help build the confidence and comfort level of walking with your eyes closed and eventually lead to the ability to relax.

Good Luck!  Let me know what you find!

The Science of Echolocation in Bats - Active Sensing

Followers! I just found this great publication from Nachum Ulanovsky at the Weizmann Institute of Science. It was just published this past May and has some great information on the physics of object recognition, texture recognition, beacon signal mechanics, the radar equation and all sorts of other fun stuff. So forget the books I posted earlier today, CHECK THIS OUT!

Active Sensing: The case of echolocation in bats

Echolocation Books:

Sorry I've been slacking off here.  For everyone out there looking for more information on echolocation check out these:

Listening in the Dark: The Acoustic Orientation of Bats and Men

Echolocation in Bats and Dolphins

The Sonar of Dolphins

ABC News Specials Medical Mysteries Series-Episode #3

Echolocation in Whales and Dolphins

The Neural Basis of Echolocation in Bats (Zoophysiology)

Echo-location

Perception: Philosophy of perception, Illusion, Déjà vu, Direct realism, Gestalt psychology, Animal echolocation, Chemotaxis, Nothing

Transmitting Beam Patterns of the Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops Truncatus) : Investigations in the Existence and Use of High Frequency Components Found in Echolocation Signals

Echolocation: "A New Way of Seeing the World"

Science Daily on echolocation:

this would be a new way of perceiving the world

 I recently found an encouraging article published by Science Daily.  This article introduces the concept of echolocation to the masses, and presents it in such a way that reveals entirely new possibilities for the human race. In addition to the benefits that I've been describing here, they discussed the potential use for echolocation as a sort of natural "x-ray".

 The article discusses the capacity for anyone to be able to learn echolocation.  This skill is not something you're born with and it's not something that's outside the realm of possibility.  Like anything else, it just takes practice:

...no special physical skills are required in order to develop this skill. “Two hours per day for a couple of weeks are enough to distinguish whether you have an object in front of you, and within another two weeks you can tell the difference between trees and a pavement”, Martínez tells SINC.
The scientist recommends trying with the typical “sh” sound used to make someone be quiet. Moving a pen in front of the mouth can be noticed straightaway. This is a similar phenomenon to that when travelling in a car with the windows down, which makes it possible to “hear” gaps in the verge of the road.

Echolocation could rival sight itself 

I love reading articles like this.  There is so much more to the human machine than we currently know.  This type of insight is sure to bring about a whole new perspective on life.  This is another quote from the article regarding the potential use of echolocation for seeing through softer materials to the harder materials behind.

Another of the team’s research areas involves establishing the biological limits of human echolocation ability, “and the first results indicate that detailed resolution using this method could even rival that of sight itself”. In fact, the researchers started out by being able to tell if there was someone standing in front of them, but now can detect certain internal structures, such as bones, and even “certain objects inside a bag”.

Hopefully this type of research will continue and we can begin to develop this skill in our youths to give them a better understanding of the world, a leg up on all those who simply rely on sight, and the confidence of being an extremely capable human.

Quote source:
Plataforma SINC (2009, July 6). Scientists Develop Echolocation In Humans To Aid The Blind. ScienceDaily. Retrieved October 19, 2010, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090630075445.htm

The Latest Echolocation Beacon Preference

Image by bschmove via Flickr

Realizing that learning echo location when it is not an everyday necessity can be a long and arduous process, I’d like to apologize for not having posted here for a while. I’m am still striving to understand this phenomenon and I’m currently working to refine my beacon.

The Problem with Echolocating using the Mouth Click
I’m finding that making a clicking noise with my mouth presents several issues that I would like to avoid. I’m attempting to adjust my beacon method to something a bit more amenable to echolocation and modern social situations. Below is a list of downfalls I’ve identified about the mouth click:

1. It creates a sound source that is too close to my ears, making it harder to hear the echo over the source.
2. Less socially acceptable – not that that will stop me, but in an effort to offer the best solution to the inquisitive general public, I’d prefer something a bit less socially intrusive.
3. It denies you the use of your mouth for things like eating on-the-go, swallowing, talking, etc.
4. The time in between clicks is dead space and does not provide any data. In order to increase the resolution the clicks must get closer together.
5. Having the mouth open for long periods can cause dryness and discomfort.
6. Not a preferable method in quiet places, like the library.

My Latest Echolocation Beacon Preference
What I’ve been using recently has proven to be very effective. I would even say more effective than the blade pop or any other click I have tried. It is also non-intrusive to my environment – meaning it does not startle others and is acceptable to use in a quiet setting. The one negative observation I would make about this technique is that it is much better for sensing objects up close (up to 5-7 feet away) rather than far away. Objects that are farther than 5-7 feet away will most likely be difficult to pick up with this technique.

1. Place the thumb and forefingers together in traditional “sock puppet” position.
2. Slowly rub the thumb in circles on the fingers to create a high pitched rubbing sound.
3. To isolate the source from your ears turn your hand away from you so that the thumb and forefingers are on the opposite side of your hand. Your hand will act as a barrier and will direct the sound away from you and toward your target. Remember, you want to hear the echo just as well, if not better than the source.

As far as I can tell this method has a lot of advantages over the "blade popping" and other methods of clicking.  (See the properties of a good click signal)

I guess another sticking point for this technique could be if your hands are not dry enough to create a sound when you rub your fingers together.

Anyhow, give this a try and let me know what you think about it.

Exercises for Improving Eyesight Naturally

In ancient China, Shaolin monks developed a fighting style based on the physical characteristics and iconic elements of the personality of the Tiger.  They called this Tiger style Kung-Fu.  Since a Tiger has very keen eyesight, the monks developed methods of exercising their eyes to improve thier eyesight.  These would have been exercises that they trained and developed from a very young age.  They would have been performed by eveyone training in the Tiger style regardless of whether they had so-called "20/20 vision".  No matter how good you are at something, you can aways become better with more training.

In today's age, we look at computer screens and through glass far too much.  I have been recently practicing the following exercises and have noticed an improvement in my eyesight over just the past couple months.

One exercise was to count the leaves on a far away tree.  With meditative patience they would focus in and count hundreds of leaves at a time.  (This is a good one to practice in the fall since the leaves are changing colors and you may be staring at leaves quite a bit anyway.)  Start up close with some leaves that are easy to make out and count 50 of them.  With patience, slowly pick trees that are farther away from you and then slowly increase the number of leaves you count.  Work your way up to 200 which will give you a good amount of time with your eyes focused at a distance.  Do this once daily.

Another exercise is to focus on an object very close to your face.  I usually choose my hand.  Get it as close to your eyes as you can while retaining a good focus on it.  Look at it for about 2-3 seconds after you've fully adjusted your focus on it, and then pick another object that is more than 20 feet away.  I generally pick a leaf on a tree or something else that has some fine detail that will allow me to really focus on finer and finer detail.  If you pick a flatt wall or something that doesn't have much texture or detail it will be hard to focus on.  Again, look at the object for 2-3 seconds after you have achieved a good focus.  Go back and forth between these two objects about 20 times and do this exercise daily.