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OfflineSammysong
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Are the senses useful? * 2
    #21739609 - 05/30/15 02:18 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

According to the myth, Democritus pulled out his own eyes so as not to be decieved by his senses.

Could it be that our senses obscure our view of the world? Could it be that what we see with our eyes makes it difficult to see with the eyes of our mind?

Surely our senses seem to be our only window of the world.

But many important discoveries, many important notions of philosophy and science were "discovered" not with the human eyes but with the eyes of the mind. For example the notion of "infinity" is something we "saw" with our mind. There is nothing "infinite" in the cosmos we see. In the same way the notion of "atoms" that Democritus "discovered" was not something "seen". He saw them with the eyes of his mind and his mind alone. The catalogue can go on and on.

In a world of consciousness, we seem to rely too much on our senses.

What is your opinion?


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InvisibleOrgoneConclusion
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Re: Are the senses useful? [Re: Sammysong]
    #21739710 - 05/30/15 03:36 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

I think you should do the Democritus' experiment and get back to us with a full report.


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Invisiblequinn
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Re: Are the senses useful? [Re: Sammysong]
    #21739714 - 05/30/15 03:38 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

well if democritus was really serious about it he should have cut off his ears as well.. and his nose.. and his toungue... and probably peeled off the rest of his skin.. and i dont know if he was just a brain floating in a vat that he would be able to know very much at all really..

empiricists such as david hume argue that everything we could possibly know and imagine is drawn from the senses.. even the idea of infinity, hume deals with explicitly, saying, it is just the biggest thing we can think of, drawn from our experience of other big things..

the practice of science itself is empirical, it is all about what can be observed, so in that sense yes the senses are pretty useful..

i think the question democritus may really be pointing at, is that our senses can regularly deceive us, and sensationalist knowledge that appeals to our senses can regularly be misleading..

hume also deals with that point by saying that when we are emotionally stirred up with something we are more prone to making errors of judgement and it is when we are in calm states, where we have our needs met and can reflect on the world where we are most capable of reasoning clearly (for ourselves and to come to agreement with others as well)


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InvisibleTropism
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Re: Are the senses useful? [Re: Sammysong]
    #21740513 - 05/30/15 10:29 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Sammysong said:
But many important discoveries, many important notions of philosophy and science were "discovered" not with the human eyes but with the eyes of the mind. For example the notion of "infinity" is something we "saw" with our mind. There is nothing "infinite" in the cosmos we see. In the same way the notion of "atoms" that Democritus "discovered" was not something "seen". He saw them with the eyes of his mind and his mind alone. The catalogue can go on and on.

In a world of consciousness, we seem to rely too much on our senses.

What is your opinion?




Um well for one the cosmos itself seems infinite from our pea-sized place, I don't imagine it was hard to think up being inside a box that never ends and the visual lack of obtrusive walls when you look at the night sky may have helped that.

Quote:

In a world of consciousness, we seem to rely too much on our senses.




In world of senses, conscious beings are really silly.


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Invisibleonce in a lifetime
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Re: Are the senses useful? [Re: Sammysong] * 1
    #21741213 - 05/30/15 02:05 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

an interesting quote would seem to be apt,

'when the doors of perception are cleansed, all is seen as it is, infinite,' - william blake

inspired a lot of trippers, including alduous huxley's work 'the doors of perception,' written about his experiences with mescaline.

sense are very useful and helpful - as humans we rely on about 70% visual  sensory input, while many other animals are more centered around auditory and olfactory,

yet as einstein put it, it's all sort of an 'optical delusion of consciousness,'

of course which has been a significant part of the focus for eastern philosophers and psychologists, for millennia.

there is many more mystery, and one of the doorway to such is the first taste of non-duality. .

for me it is like waking up from a dream; suddenly feet on the ground, though life was full -

after it there is again endless awakenings, there is no end or limit either to dreams or awakening; each is boundless as the sky.


as humans, with some 70% of our sensory-input coming from the visual, we have some of the better eyesight within the animal realm - of course; far below an eagle, what to speak of a mantis shrimp,



i also think honing the senses is one of the very, very best things one can do in life.  for vision, gazing on a distant horizon or clouds, trees on the horizon, is an ideal way of improving it - because the eye muscles relax to see far away, etc.


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InvisibleKurt
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Re: Are the senses useful? [Re: Sammysong]
    #21743335 - 05/31/15 12:21 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Well said Sammysong, and speaking to the notion (I think its mostly a question too) in your following examples, I would say there is much to respond to.

I would generally agree that either there is an inner sense, as in a faculty of "intuition", or in its critique which is fair to impress, difficult to escape "prejudices and preconceptions" which guide what we perceive as physical reality.

What does our "sense" refer to? An inner or outer sense? Is it an object, ie. what is generally (or empirically) perceived in sense? Or is a sense of something a perceptive faculty itself (smells tastes sights hearing, touch)? Or somehow as the bane of all western philosophers, what is this apparently conjuncted occurence of a sense?

Kudos by the way, Once in a lifetime, for pointing to our poets, who themselves are our doors of perception if we can find them. Maybe in our senses, we only follow a way, a tao, which is not the way? Maybe we should seek the basis of yoga, citta vrtti nirodha, or seek to "cease the fluctuations of the mind", break the idea of an attached point of reference to seek new vistas for the "eye unused to flow", (as Shakespeare once wrote)?

Sammysong, I think your post is indicating certain ways ways of disentangling preconceptions, by locating the ideas of an ostensibly empirical basis, such as materialism or atomism, as ideas prior to having anything to do with sense experience. In this way we can do away with a lot of prejudiced preconceptions.

I concur, and I would like to comment on the ancients, and have already written much on this in response, but I am exhausted and just wanted to make a relatively brief response (this is half of it).

In passing I would note an idea's priority, as said, could also be suggested through experience, or an experiential reality, such as by the transcendental aesthetic, or intuition, as Kant puts it.

I'd say Kant's "critique" is a pretty dry exposition, but interesting for its unique relavency to a modernity. Through Kant's suggestion, it is possible to contend that we evaluate an intuition through experience, and experience through intuition.

From the intro to "Critique of Pure Reason":

"THERE can be no doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience. For how should our faculty of knowledge be awakened into action did not objects affecting our senses partly of themselves produce representations, partly arouse the activity of our understanding to compare these representations, and, by combining or separating them, work up the raw material of the sensible impressions into that knowledge of objects which is entitled experience? In the order of time, therefore, we have no knowledge antecedent to experience, and with experience all our knowledge begins.

But though all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it all arises out of experience. For it may well be that even our empirical knowledge is made up of what we receive through impressions and of what our own faculty of knowledge (sensible impressions serving merely as the occasion) supplies from itself. If our faculty of knowledge makes any such addition, it may be that we are not in a position to distinguish it from the raw material, until with long practice of attention we have become skilled in separating it.

This, then, is a question which at least calls for closer examination, and does not allow of any off-hand answer: -- whether there is any knowledge that is thus independent of experience and even of all impressions of the senses. Such knowledge is entitled a priori, and distinguished from the empirical, which has its sources a posteriori, that is, in experience."


Edited by Kurt (06/01/15 11:11 AM)


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Offlinesecondorder
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Re: Are the senses useful? [Re: Sammysong]
    #21743943 - 05/31/15 06:16 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Kurt's Kant quote hit the nail on the head. The "eyes of our mind" are severely limited without our senses. The main point I want to make here is that our senses are important even if they are not accurate. Even if everything we see, hear, taste, smell etc. is an illusion, then our senses have still improved the depth of our understanding of reality. By perceiving one event happen after another in a variety of different fashions, we learn more about the nature of causation. By seeing something before hearing it, we learn that it is possible for an event to have different modes of influence via different types of waves. By experiencing different colors we are able to learn that different surfaces interact differently with certain waves. Again, it doesn't matter if any of these things are true, or just illusions, the very fact that these ideas are exposed to us improves our understanding of reason and reality. The more we sense, the more the mind is exposed to new ideas. The more ideas the mind is exposed to, the more skills, and the deeper the understanding our minds acquire.

Even when it comes to areas of inquiry that we consider almost entirely separated from the senses, such as mathematics or logic, the senses are still useful. Take the following, for example:

Ludwig Wittgenstein was an incredibly influential logician and philosopher of mathematics, who argued (among many other things) that predicates must be external to subjects, if logical statements are to make any sense, which many would argue is completely devoid of any empiricism, as it is a statement about deductive logic. However, in order to argue this claim, he required an empirical example: Wittgenstein said that, upon hearing a loud noise, you could ask “Was that thunder, or gunfire?” but not “Was that a noise?” The senses were necessary for this rational conclusion, and such is the case for almost every rational conclusion ever reached.


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OfflineMarkostheGnostic
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Re: Are the senses useful? [Re: Sammysong]
    #21745107 - 05/31/15 03:07 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Amazing Journey - The Who

Deaf, dumb and blind boy
He's in a quiet vibration land
Strange as it seems his musical dreams ain't quite so bad

Ten years old, with thoughts as bold as thought can be
Loving life and becoming wise, in simplicity

Sickness will surely take the mind
Where minds can't usually go
Come on the amazing journey and learn all you should know

A vague haze of delirium creeps up on me
All at once a tall stranger I suddenly see
He's dressed in a silver sparked, glittering gown
And his golden beard flows, nearly down to the ground

Nothing to say, nothing to hear and nothing to see
Each sensation makes a note in my symphony

Sickness will surely take the mind
Where minds can't usually go
Come on, the amazing journey and learn all you should know

His eyes are the eyes that, transmit all they know
Sparkle warm crystalline glances to show
He is your leader, he is your guide
On the amazing journey together you'll ride



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InvisibleKurt
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Re: Are the senses useful? [Re: secondorder]
    #21747962 - 06/01/15 11:04 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Hey second order. I just would add for clarities sake that your statement "the senses can be useful", or namely talking about an "external" sense, is the opposite of what Kant was describing.

However, I would say his point in context, philosophy's so called Copernican Revolution, is that correspondence of sense experience goes both ways. So in that way, especially if an external sense is possibly "critiqued" in a respective way, I'd say it seems like what you saying is pretty similar.


Edited by Kurt (06/01/15 12:34 PM)


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Offlinesecondorder
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Re: Are the senses useful? [Re: Kurt]
    #21749273 - 06/01/15 04:24 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

I suppose I must not understand the quote then. I always did have a bit of trouble when reading Kant. Do you mind explaining it further?


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InvisibleCognitive_Shift
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Re: Are the senses useful? [Re: Sammysong]
    #21750518 - 06/01/15 09:21 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Relying on our senses is all we have.  I wouldn't read to much into myths, who knows what crafty old man made it up.


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InvisibleDividedQuantumM
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Re: Are the senses useful? [Re: Sammysong] * 1
    #21750621 - 06/01/15 09:49 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Empiricism is inadequate because scientific theories explain the seen in terms of the unseen and the unseen, you have to admit, doesn’t come to us through the senses.

--David Deutsch




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Re: Are the senses useful? [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #21750768 - 06/01/15 10:22 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

It most certainly does come through the senses, you can't read an instrument if you have no eyes, you can't measure anything if you have no eyes.  Everything comes through the senses.


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Offlinesecondorder
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Re: Are the senses useful? [Re: Cognitive_Shift]
    #21750892 - 06/01/15 10:50 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

It most certainly does come through the senses, you can't read an instrument if you have no eyes, you can't measure anything if you have no eyes.  Everything comes through the senses.




This^


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InvisibleCognitive_Shift
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Re: Are the senses useful? [Re: secondorder]
    #21751113 - 06/02/15 12:23 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Our senses are not perfect instruments for understanding the universe exactly as it is assuming there is a reality exactly as it is.  Our senses are JUST good enough for us to survive and reproduce and that's it.  Not perfect, but good enough.


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Offlinesecondorder
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Re: Are the senses useful? [Re: Cognitive_Shift]
    #21751623 - 06/02/15 07:24 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Our senses are JUST good enough for us to survive and reproduce and that's it.  Not perfect, but good enough.




I'd say our senses are a bit better than only "JUST" allowing us to survive, we don't exactly scrape by. Humans inhabit almost the entire world, and a good portion of us doesn't need to farm or hunt our own food, we just walk to the local store and exchange some pieces of paper for it. We aren't just surviving, we're kicking ass (and also kicking natures ass in the process). Our senses have allowed us to understand more mere survival necessitates.

Having said that, I get your point: Our eyes didn't evolve to see every wavelength of light (or even a remotely decent portion of the light spectrum), our ears didn't evolve to hear many sounds frequencies, we never evolved a sense for magnetism, our minds didn't evolve to understand super complex theoretical physics. BUT, we've done a pretty good job of understanding all of the above despite our shortcomings.


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InvisibleDividedQuantumM
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Re: Are the senses useful? [Re: Cognitive_Shift]
    #21751789 - 06/02/15 08:46 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Cognitive_Shift said:
It most certainly does come through the senses, you can't read an instrument if you have no eyes, you can't measure anything if you have no eyes.  Everything comes through the senses.




Okay, without disagreeing with you, may I ask your opinion on how the Schrödinger equation is tied to the senses?


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Offlinesecondorder
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Re: Are the senses useful? [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #21752165 - 06/02/15 10:47 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Okay, without disagreeing with you, may I ask your opinion on how the Schrödinger equation is tied to the senses?




I know this wasn't directed at me, but I'd like to comment anyway. I don't understand the Schrödinger equation and I will likely never understand it, but I don't need to understand it to know that it is tied to the senses. Without previous theories and experiments, the Schrödinger equation couldn't have been created. Human's can't just jump right into physics and get complex quantum mechanical equations. First you need people looking around, observing stuff, then maybe Aristotelian Physics, then maybe some Newtonian Physics, maybe sprinkle a bit of Einstein in there, and eventually there is enough information around to generate and understand something like the Schrödinger equation.
How could Schrödinger have possibly have come up with the Schrödinger equation without all of the observing and experiments that built physics up in the first place? Let alone the observations and sense experiences he had throughout his life.
If the Schrödinger equation has anything at all to do with gravity, or light, or matter, or energy, or waves (it's gotta have something to do with one of those things right?) then how would Schrödinger have known that those things existed without using his senses?


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Re: Are the senses useful? [Re: secondorder] * 1
    #21752181 - 06/02/15 10:52 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

You make good points.  Is it possible, however, that in discovering that equation, a principle was brought forth that is not tied to the senses?  That is, is it not possible that empirical observations are important and necessary, but do not underlie all aspects of what humans have discovered?  Or in other words, empiricism may be fundamental, but perhaps there are other things that are fundamental as well that are independent of empiricism?  Must absolutely everything come from an empirical foundation?


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Offlinesecondorder
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Re: Are the senses useful? [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #21752469 - 06/02/15 12:06 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Is it possible, however, that in discovering that equation, a principle was brought forth that is not tied to the senses?




I really don't have a good enough understanding (or any understanding) of the equation to say.

Quote:

That is, is it not possible that empirical observations are important and necessary, but do not underlie all aspects of what humans have discovered?  Or in other words, empiricism may be fundamental, but perhaps there are other things that are fundamental as well that are independent of empiricism?  Must absolutely everything come from an empirical foundation?




There definitely could be something that does not come from an empirical foundation. It's just not clear as to what that would/could be. I'm not willing to make any concrete claims about such things, only speculate, but I'm definitely open to them.

It would be interesting to have a test subject that is born into the world with no senses whatsoever.. If they were able to come up with a principle, an axiom of some sort, a deductive argument, a proof etc. Then that would prove that empiricism is not the only foundation for such things. The problem is, only they would know whether or not they came up with anything, and what it was that they came up with, they could not communicate it with us, because they wouldn't know how to communicate, or even know that we exist.


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InvisibleCognitive_Shift
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Re: Are the senses useful? [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #21752487 - 06/02/15 12:08 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

DividedQuantum said:
Is it possible, however, that in discovering that equation, a principle was brought forth that is not tied to the senses? 




If it's possible how would it be possible?  Just because something is possible doesn't make it true.


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InvisibleCognitive_Shift
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Re: Are the senses useful? [Re: Cognitive_Shift]
    #21752491 - 06/02/15 12:09 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

DividedQuantum said:
Quote:

Cognitive_Shift said:
It most certainly does come through the senses, you can't read an instrument if you have no eyes, you can't measure anything if you have no eyes.  Everything comes through the senses.




Okay, without disagreeing with you, may I ask your opinion on how the Schrödinger equation is tied to the senses?



You have to have eyes to look at the math and write it down.  If you're blind you need to feel the equation with your fingers.  Senses are all we have.  I know this doesn't jive you're classical view of reality that it exists in super perfect natural order above our senses, but it's the truth.


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Re: Are the senses useful? [Re: Cognitive_Shift]
    #21752647 - 06/02/15 12:45 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

I don't necessarily appreciate being pigeonholed like that -- incorrectly, I would add -- but, moving on.  Do you really think humans are so important that the universe couldn't go on without us?


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Re: Are the senses useful? [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #21752663 - 06/02/15 12:50 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Since we are a species of animal living on the planet and the universe has gone on after the extinction of all the previous species on the planet.  Yes it would go on with out us, I don't think the universe revolves around our existence.



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Re: Are the senses useful? [Re: Cognitive_Shift]
    #21752699 - 06/02/15 12:57 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Then why should our limited senses be considered so fundamental.  Look, I'm not arguing that empiricism isn't fabulously important.  It has a hand in wiring up everything in our brains.  But I think evolution, for example, has a major hand in our existence outside of the senses themselves.  There are other examples.  I just don't see why empiricism has to be the only explanation for our perceptions.  I feel other aspects of reality that are independent of the senses are in play as well.


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Re: Are the senses useful? [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #21752708 - 06/02/15 12:59 PM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

DividedQuantum said:
I just don't see why empiricism has to be the only explanation for our perceptions.



I do, perceptions come from the data input from our senses.


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Re: Are the senses useful? [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #21756843 - 06/03/15 10:36 AM (8 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

I feel other aspects of reality that are independent of the senses are in play as well.




I'm sure lots of stuff is going on outside of what we can sense, but what concern is that of ours? If we cannot sense it (even indirectly), then how could it possibly be relevant to us? What could we possibly care about other than things that affect our consciousness.

There may be some interesting things that do not come to us via the senses, but they would still have to have some effect on consciousness. For example; perhaps some meditation masters have been able to experience pure consciousness, with minimal sensory input. What is bare consciousness like? Literally just consciousness, with zero sensory input and zero thoughts bouncing around... This question is actually pretty interesting, and, more importantly, it is answerable, there may be people alive today that have answered this question for themselves.

Assumption 1: You are identical to your consciousness.
Assumption 2: You can only be aware of what appears in your consciousness.
Assumption 3: To sense x, is to become aware of x.

Conclusion: For x to appear in consciousness, x must be sensed.

To be fair, I am using a pretty broad definition of 'sense' here. Some people may not consider recalling memories as 'sensing' something, however, memories are just old sense percepts. Hallucinations aren't memories or sense percepts, but as far as I am aware, they could not occur without something having been sensed at some point.

The only thing I am aware of that could be relevant to us that doesn't have anything to do with the senses, is the quality and structure of bare consciousness. However, this is just me thinking out loud, I am not super certain about this whole argument, as consciousness and awareness are still deep mysteries to us, with many questions left unanswered. I am open to new suggestions, I just can't currently think of anything that could get to our consciousness without having something to do with senses.


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