Some people have a great memory, unfortunately I don’t. In fact, I’m glad I don’t, because the only thing I remembered from my second grade experience is how much I wanted to punch my science teacher in the eyes, break her noie, pull her ears and her tongue out and cut her fingers and say here you go with your five senses. “Why so violent Sufian?” you might wonder and I genuinely apologize for using some violent words that might be inappropriate for a class blog, but it’s something that I need to get out of my system one way or another. Better blogging than demonstrating right?
(A side note for future employees as Andrew warned us: This is meant to prove a point and no violence is actually intended. Thank you! And hire me)
“Why are there only five senses?”, I asked my second grade teacher with no sarcasm intended. Why can there be hundreds or thousands or even millions, a seven-year-old boy just wondering “Why are we limited to only five senses? I want thousands or maybe I want millions” a voice in my mind kept going with all different questions about this subject.
“Because it’s a FACT!!” My science teacher replied with a smile on her face. I wish I could tell you that I told her it wasn’t a fact, in fact a lot of scientists and researchers agree with me. But I didn’t I just sat there and started eating glue.
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 grade science teachers. I know I did.
How can I prove that there are more than five senses?
Well i decided to do some research and examine how each one of the five senses work.
After doing a lot of research and asking some of my friends majoring in science, we all came to the same conclusion that all senses are connected to the brain. Here’s an article explaining how your senses work.
So hearing, listening, touching, tasting and smelling are senses, but feeling is not? What about nociceptor?
Nociceptor is a cell in the nerve’s system that sends signal to the brain when it feels pain or danger. It’s that thing that makes you blink when you’re about to get punched in the face. It’s what makes you move your hand directly after you burn your hand. Is nociceptor one of the “five senses”? In fact there are many movies that challenges the idea of the five senses. Including an Arabic movie that takes nociceptor to a whole new level called by translation “The seventh senses“. Also, a famous movie called “The sixth sense” that challenges the idea in a supernatural way, which has no scientific explanations, but I’m showing it as an example to show that there is a flaw in the idea of the five senses and people are questioning it in their own ways. I can’t force you to acknowledge nociceptor as a sense as much as my science teacher can’t force me to accept the so-called “fact” that there are only five sense. In fact here’s an interesting article called Neurobiology of Pain which explains why nociceptor should be considered a sixth sense.
What is a sense to be exact? What is the scientific proof that disregards nociceptor as a sense? (The scientific proof that makes me consider nociceptor as a sense is the way it’s connected to the brain just like the other five senses)
If all senses are connected to the brain and have similar outcomes as they all perceive an external stimulus why isn’t nociceptor a sense?
In fact here’s an interesting article that argues why itching should be considered a sense. Even though I think that itching is or should be considered nociceptor as the body feels the need to itch (a harmful small living object that needs to be itched should be considered nociceptor in my eyes) but I love how the article challenges the original five senses.
Also, there are a lot of articles that argue that there are specifically 21 senses and maybe more and here’s one of my favorites called Come to Your Senses.
If you notice I didn’t focus on the history of the five senses and famous scientists, scholars or philosophers who were apart of it because I thought it was irrelevant to my point, as I think that the five senses “fact” or shall I say theory should’ve not limited our mind into five senses, but rather help us think outside the box and try to discover other senses that could possibly be out there like nociceptor. Who is a scientists or a scholar to tell me that there are only five senses? Who gives them the authority to limit us to only five? Science? Because science is opening my eyes into many more possible senses that a lot of scientists missed.
After doing a lot of studies, I couldn’t find a correctly proven answer. So my question is to you, do we really have just five senses or is it a misconception. From my own research I conclude that we have more than five senses, but that doesn’t make it correctly proven. So I advise you if you’re interested do your own research and come up with a conclusion and let me know.
Ultimately, I want to take a plane back to Yemen, go to my second grade teacher and tell her how wrong, she was limiting 20 kids minds into a misunderstood “fact”. Or maybe I should just email her the blog post. Here is a video that I decided to make, especially for the blog, since I love making videos. So if you don’t like reading just watch.
Works Cited:
“Meditation 24-7.” Your 21 Senses. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Sept. 2014.
“How Many Senses Do You Really Have?” Mercola.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Sept. 2014.
“Humans Have a Lot More Than Five Senses.” Today I Found Out RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Sept. 2014.