# Is it time to do away with the "5 senses" paradigm? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 4, 2009, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-do-away-with-the-5-senses-paradigm/505348 "2009-08-04T22:04:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-do-away-with-the-5-senses-paradigm/505348/21 "2009-08-05T16:28:30Z")
_Dorland’s Illustrated Medical Dictionary_ lists the following senses: SPECIAL SENSES: Vision Hearing Olfaction Taste SOMATIC SENSES: Touch Pain sense Pallesthesia (vibration sense) Pressure sense Temperature sense Tickling [no, I’m not making this up] Bathyesthesia (“sensibility to stimuli such as pain, movement, and pressure that activate receptors below the body surface but not in the viscera”) Movement sense Muscle sense Posture sense Somatognosis (“the general feeling of the existence of the body and of the functioning of the organs”) Stereognosis (“the faculty of understanding the form and nature of objects by sense of touch”) Topesthesia (“the power of localizing a tactile sensation”) Trichesthesia (hair sense) Visceral sense CLASSIFICATION UNCLEAR: Sense of equilibrium ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-do-away-with-the-5-senses-paradigm/505348/22 "2009-08-05T16:49:37Z")
Birds and other animals including rodents and bats have been demonstrated to be able to sense the Earth’s magnetic field, and there is increasing evidence that some [large mammals](http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/india-news/large-mammals-like-cattle-and-deer-can-sense-the-earths-magnetic-field_10088652.html) can do so as well. In addition to the senses listed, it’s possible humans also have at least a rudimentary magnetic sense as well. ---
**Author:** ![Maia\_s\_Well](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@Maia\_s\_Well](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maia_s_Well)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-do-away-with-the-5-senses-paradigm/505348/23 "2009-08-05T20:22:48Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Birds and other animals including rodents and bats have been demonstrated to be able to sense the Earth’s magnetic field, and there is increasing evidence that some [large mammals](http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/india-news/large-mammals-like-cattle-and-deer-can-sense-the-earths-magnetic-field_10088652.html) can do so as well. In addition to the senses listed, it’s possible humans also have at least a rudimentary magnetic sense as well. Is it possible this is what people are talking about when they claim to have a good “sense of direction”? Is it the iron in our bodies? I would imagine some humans have more iron in their bodies than others, depending on their size, build, and diet, right? I was wondering this because I was reading about bees having a ring of iron oxide in their abdomens that may be part of how they find their way around. But getting back to the OP, does anybody here see anything wrong with the current paradigm? It’s not just that we teach our children this, it’s that as adults we still make references to things we can measure with our “five senses”. In doing reading on the web about animal senses, several more simplified sources ([about.com and the like](http://animals.about.com/cs/zoology/a/aa061801a.htm)) refer to humans having only five senses before going into information about all these wonderful animal senses. This information is incorrect. Am I the only one who sees a problem with this? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-do-away-with-the-5-senses-paradigm/505348/24 "2009-08-05T21:31:36Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Birds and other animals including rodents and bats have been demonstrated to be able to sense the Earth’s magnetic field, and there is increasing evidence that some [large mammals](http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/india-news/large-mammals-like-cattle-and-deer-can-sense-the-earths-magnetic-field_10088652.html) can do so as well. In addition to the senses listed, it’s possible humans also have at least a rudimentary magnetic sense as well. Interestingly some body mod folks actually engineer a magnetic sense. Basically what they do is implant something magnetic, or at least ferrous under their skin, preferably in a sensitive spot, such as a finger tip. Magnetic fields then register as a pulling or pushing sensation. I’d do it myself but the thought of what would happen around a high powered magnet puts me off it. I like my blood staying in my body, thank you. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-do-away-with-the-5-senses-paradigm/505348/25 "2009-08-05T21:34:52Z")
Yeah, proprioception is as much a sense as any of the others. ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-do-away-with-the-5-senses-paradigm/505348/26 "2009-08-06T05:45:43Z")
> [@](#): > > Stretch receptors in the gastrointestinal tract sense gas distension that may result in colic pain. Looks like our universe just got bigger. ---
**Author:** ![Maia\_s\_Well](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@Maia\_s\_Well](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maia_s_Well)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-do-away-with-the-5-senses-paradigm/505348/27 "2009-08-07T19:28:28Z")
OK, I think I’ve figured out the mistake I made in the OP. Good discussions (or at least active ones) seem to start here in GD once someone says something controversial, right? So, here goes: I think that the fact that we teach our children “we have five senses” is part of the scientific illiteracy in this country. I think it represents an unwillingness to represent human experience as data, since, after all, every single one of us is just an anecdote, right? And we all “know” that an anecdote, no matter how well document, isn’t science, right? Except that’s bullshit, for at least two reasons. One, humans form their belief systems from experience (even if it’s the experience of having been brainwashed), and, two, the first step in the scientific method is supposed to be OBSERVATION without hypothesis. Do we really think that the major advances in scientific theory didn’t start from some smart person observing an “anecdote”, having an inspiration, and then forming a hypothesis? We start our children on their journey to learn about the world with a pre-planted bit of ignorance cutting them off from their own experiences. And we continue to drop that particular bit of ignorance into our observations as adults. We argue about all manner of things on this board and continue to drop “five senses” into discussions as though it’s a scientific fact, and, folks, IT AIN’T. So, why is this little bit of bad information such a problem? Because it forms part of a paradigm that defiles the scientific method and supports the ignorant position that humans are somehow separate from not only nature and our universe, but somehow separate from the rest of reality. It informs the position that an individual rational mind, the one that does the thinking, is what a human really is, and discounts everything else. It helps lead us to believe that only what we can measure exists, while it discourages us from paying enough attention to our own experiences to even notice that there’s more we need to figure out how to measure. And it leaves ordinary people to a place where they cannot explain so much of their own experience that they MUST write it off under “magic” or “supernatural”, which strikes me as both insulting to the wonder that is reality and insulting to God, if there actually is one. (Threw in that last bit for those who haven’t found anything else here to argue about.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-do-away-with-the-5-senses-paradigm/505348.md?page=1)