Hearing and Touch
The old saw is that blind people have better hearing. It seems to make sense, right? The brain and body has left over capacity and a vital need for more information, so — like a muscle — it gets stronger at the remaining senses.
It doesn’t really work that way though. What does happen is that when you lose a sense we have the option to pay more attention to the other senses. It is an illusion to think that somehow when we are seeing our hearing is suppressed, or any other combination of senses you like.
It is also a myth that we only have five senses. I have heard different numbers bandied about — seventeen is a common one — but no matter how you decide to count them, there are at least ten.
Personal revelation: I have lost most of the feeling in my hands. I cannot feel texture at all, and my ability to sense hot and cold are greatly muted (I have to examine them periodically to make sure I haven’t cut, burned, or otherwise hurt myself). I often wonder what other people thing when I turn to my wife and say “I think this is soft, right?”
Increasingly I am aware of how important my other senses are to my sense of touch. What I see influences how I think something should feel. The sound generated by my fingers feeds into the mix. Etc. They all work together to give me clues to what something is. But all I truly feel at this point is a memory.
Think of walking in a dark room, especially one we know well. How you rely on your sense of touch and balance, how every sound your hear provides a clue all swirling together until you can almost see.
It is true that we have discreet senses that can operate independent of one another, but that isn’t actually how we work. I submit to you that we really only have one real sense, which is the combination of all of them.
We do not simply see, or hear, or whatever; what we do is to perceive based on the combination of all of our senses, and our memory and experience.
