PHILOSOPHY
SENSES
Index
The Philosophy of Senses Qualia of Senses
Senses Smell Taste Colour Touch Sound
Activators Smell Taste Colour Touch Sound
4-5 6-7
6-9 10-13 14-17 18-21 22-25
26-29
The Philosophy of Senses The elements have been always something mystical for human beings. Our Human mind wants to explain our surrounding and try to understand it. Since centuries we human-beings are fascinated by the elements. We are trying to see the world order and how we are integrated in our world since the early beginning of our being. In the idea of Sicilian philosopher Empedocles the word is build on the elements. Contrasts which work together to create an unity and balance.
„To the elements it came from Everything will return. Our bodies to earth, Our blood to water, Heat to fire, Breath to air.“ This unity gives us shelter and shape. Plato build on this way of thinking in his dialogue Timaeus .360 B.C and describes the elements towards shapes. The dialogue of Timaeus is the source of the platonic shapes which are basic geometrical shapes
Earth
Fire
Water
Air
Universe
described towards the elements. Connecting with the elements has also always influenced our experience with the world in which we live. Our senses are closely related to the elements. Like the Kashmir Shaivism a school of Śaivism that our senses are creating elemental energy. Every sense has a connection to an element. Since our senses are related to our human body we are according to this philosophy always connected to the elements.
The idea that an organism has a special conscious experience that only it can have is what is called
“the subjective character of experience“ Nowadays we are loosing the connection though since we are getting more technologic advanced. Science gives us rational descriptions of the elements. In matter of this the description of elements got more cold. We are not thinking of the poetry towards senses but more in a rational way of describing it in a scientific way. But even though we are having all this scientific descriptions we can never completely explain our conscious experience of the senses, in philosophical terms the qualia of senses!
Qualia of Senses Senses have a basic influence on our behaviours We are having memories, feelings and different experiences with our senses. Since the qualia of senses describes that we can not compare our senses to each other these experiences are different from person to person. The American philosopher Thomas Nagel described this in an thought experiment in 1974. He asked the question „What is it like to be a bat?“. We can copy everything of a bat. We could sleep hanging upside down, create wings for ourselves and create technology which allows us to see the environment with ultrasonic waves. But we will still not know what is it like to be a bat, because we can not become the bat. We are restricted in our own human experience. This thought I implement into my philosophy of senses. Our senses might be called the same but the conscious experience will be different from person to person, since we can not become the other person. Through this we are having always a individual experiences which is unique for our mind. Technology doesn´t let us understand each others qualia it only broadens our own field of experience. But how can we relate to each other to not loose our human connection. If we take this relativity of experiences we drive apart towards an ultimate egocentric state of mind. If we would dive into this state we can not share experiences so through this we have to search for common parts of our experiences. These common parts are the activators of our experiences. How are we experiencing is vague but the initiator of the experience is common..
„We are not the same, I am myself.“
„What is it like to be a bat?“ American philosopher Thomas Nagel 1974
Transporter
Air
Content
Earth
The sense of smell is dominating, it can change what we are doing and influence other senses like our sense of taste. The experience of smell is essential for our being. It is especially strong related to our memories. Once you experienced a specific smell it can stick to our memory forever. The receiver of smell if our Nose, it is the entrance to our body in terms of smell. When we receive a smell experience we are creating a connection with surrounding and moment. This can lead to a total environmental orientation or even lead a way towards social interaction but also distraction
„We are creating a library in ourselves. A library of experience in smell. „
Receiver
Manipulator
The biggest manipulator in our sensual experience are the pheromones we create with our body. Those can not only our experience but also the one of those who are surrounded by us! The Manipulator can change the experience through producing itself and getting absorbed by the receiver of others. Through this we can connect our experiences in a way of manipulation ourselves and others. This is also the fact why our sense of smell is one of the stronger ones but also the most sensitive one. After we receive and manipulate our experiences can be connected but not compared. The creation of human connection and social behaviours is often related to smell. It can change our experience of feelings towards ourselves or others.
Transporter
Water
Content
Earth
Receiver
The sense of taste is very personal and basic. Through this sense we are making discoveries and learn. In the development of one human being, the sense of taste is one of the first activated senses. Toddlers are discovering through tasting it gives them insights in objects and learns them new things. Through this development the taste of sense gets unfortunately exhausted. The receiver the tongue becomes less sensitive to tastes because it gets battered. Our experiences become different over time and the intensity get less when we grow older. We are loosing this basic sense but can trigger it with stronger activators. In this way the older we are the stronger the activator of the sense has to be! The activators are mostly things we digest since the mouth is our entrance towards our body in sense of taste.
„Taste is the sense which gets manipulated the most!“
We are manipulating our sense of taste a lot we are doing this by stronger activators or also other senses like the smell and the colour sense are influencing the sense of taste.
But also our body fluids are a taste manipulator if it is seen as a production of extra tastes. for example sweat can since it covers our whole body, sometimes influence our taste with its strong characteristic taste. As already mentioned the Sense of smell is one which manipulates the sense of taste a lot. Taste is depending on smell to create the complete experience of taste if it is only alone the taste would be not as strong as it could be together with smell!
Manipulator
Sweat
Transporter
Fire
Content
Aether
The sense of colour is one of our most active but also the most mystical one. We are perceiving colour everyday but we can not know if what we are experience is comparable with what others experience. We learn language for colours but we can not completely explain how our brain will show us the colour itself. Our receiver the eye gathers the wavelengths and then it will be transformed into colour. This is the rational way of experiencing colours. When we consciously experience the wavelengths and therefor colours.
„Language describes colour but colour describes experiences“
Receiver
Manipulator
Brain We can scientifically try to explain the colour to communicate about what is rationally happening in nature but the part of experiencing itself is depending on the qualia of an human-being. Our brain is the manipulator of these experiences. We can discover colours without wavelengths, they can be reproduced in our brain itself. This effects can be activated by drugs, sleep but also through light when we have our eyes closed. Hallucinations or dreams are examples of these colours created by our brain itself. The capability of our brain is enormous. The complete capibility is still not discovered and so far we can not exactly describe this sense in total.
Transporter
Earth
Content
Fire
Receiver
Skin The sense of touch connects and creates a relation between ourselves and others or physical matter. We can connect and share our physical experience through our sense of touch. It can be very energetic and powerful. Erotic and Power are two of the main words for this sense. The interaction between physical matter and our body can make us feel comfortable but also energize our experience. The skin our receiver for this sense is our biggest receiver, in comparisons to the other receivers it has the biggest surface and can absorb also a lot of input. It is regional divided in sensitivity but also for function. As example if you would take the activator kissing it can give different feelings of experience on different areas of the skin. A kiss on the hand creates an different experience than a kiss on our neck.
But also the function of the different parts is very important. The skin area on our hand is more sensitive since we are discovering with these areas. In manipulation our heart plays a important role.
„Touch is the sense of energy and erotic“
The heart can change our qualia of touch. In terms of touch the heart contains the intensity of feelings. If we are getting touched by someone loved we are experiencing touch differently than if something wants to harm ourselves. Heart pressure can define our sensitivity of touch. The way how we experience relaxation after exhaustion and high pressure of the heart is changing. Touch is a very “back to basics” sense it is closely related to ourselves but also to the connection we have with physical matter. It can be cold and aggressive but also very welcoming and sensitive.
Manipulator
Heart
Transporter
Air
Content
Aether
The sense of sound is the sense of communication speed and creativity. This sense allows us to understand each other and to express our feelings in ways of language. Through this sense we can interact easily with others and tell stories.
„We created barriers in the freedom of sound, Language“
Our receiver the ears are catching a lot of different sounds all the time, but there are restrictions of how we can interact on sound to understand each other. Since we are having a different range of qualia in sound we have to be on the same ranges to hear the actual sounds.
Receiver
Manipulator
Also it can become a barrier if we don´t know the others language. This can only happen with sound since we have created the language it is not god given so there is so far no universal language in sound. The interpretation of specific sounds can be so broad since every culture has their own interpretation and gives them further to the next generations. Our manipulator the mouth can shape so many different sounds which makes it even harder to become understandable in between each other. The sounds get more and more interpretations which become more difficult to make one common language in sound.
Activators
Connection
Qualia in
The activators are playing an important part in our interaction with the elements. They allow us to connect to our senses and through this the elements. Activators can create a state of mind where it is possible to fully enjoy and discover the senses.
Since we are have everybody our own qualia which is hard to relate to we need to connect in some way. If we would drive towards this lonely state of mind, where everything is relative since the experience of ourselves is the most important and main experience, we would forget about other which develops danger and fear in the society we are living in. We would not enjoy the company of others since we can not share anything with these other beings.
In this way we need the activators because the activators are actions which can be shared and can connect us with our individual experiences. We are sharing the task or action itself but discover different experiences. We can create human connections with creating and designing these activators. Through these leisure experiences we can connect in our qualia and influence but not copy the experience of the other.
Eating Eating in general works as an activator for two senses so once it works as an activator for smell and also for Taste. Our smell helps us to recognize the quality of our food and our taste is depending on our smell. In this way the main activation will be smell. If we relate it to qualia our smell dominates the taste.
Grooming Grooming gives us a lot of different experiences in the activity itself. It also depends what is the intention behind it which influence the basic experience of grooming. It seems obvious that this activity is related to smell since the result of it is to create a smell but also a visual experience for ourself and others.
Dating Dating might seem to go with the sense of touch but the sense of smell is more important for this activity. Our body is reacting on the smell and the pheromones of others we experience everything in a different way since our senses gets manipulated by the pheromones of the other.
Gardening The smell experience in the activator of gardening is unique, it creates a specific sensation in our body which can influence all of our senses and create all kinds of feelings in our body. The gardening activator can also stick to our senses through the experience. In fact we already have this experience in our mind and it gets reactivated if we only experience the smell of the gardening itself.
Drinking Eating is more related to smell but with drinking we are depending a bit more on our taste. of course the sense of smell still manipulates a lot but with drinks we can have a unique taste experience which can not be created only through smell . The taste of different drinks is more defined by our taste than by the smell itself.
Toddler The fading activator of being a toddler is one of our first discovered once. We are learning through this activator and it can only be accessed till we have reached the limit of learning in our society this is more call as to grow up since we are not keeping the will to discover in a risky way as a toddler does. Toddlers learn through taste their first intention is to taste objects to discover their being.
Smoking Smoking might not be the most healthy and tasty activator but it influences our taste a lot.. We can experience more tastes through smoking because it opens up new mixtures of taste. This activator though also weakens our body and our taste sense over time. We can not experience it in the same way if we exhaust our sense of taste too often with it.
Sports The activator called sports might be a huge category but in general it influences a lot of our taste experience. The exhaustion of our body and the strife to get lost minerals gives us a huge difference in an taste experience. It creates a need for additions and this we can become through our sense of taste.
Drugs To activate our sense of colour through drugs seems maybe like if we would cheat. Most of the hallucinogenics are designed to react on our brain and create colours in our sight. But the interesting thing about drugs is that everything we start to create and hallucinate is created through our brain. The input becomes very low and out brain itself create an imaginary world of colour and shape!
TV & Games Video games & TV are the scientific solution for creating shapes and colours outside of our brain. The overloading of our brain through visual input is the problem with all this activators. These should be maybe not be practiced too often since our brain looses on capacity to generate its own colours and shapes. The experience of the TV is especially designed to make it as close as possible for everybody!
Z
Z Z
Sleeping During sleeping our brain starts to work a lot it starts to process all of our experiences which we got during the day. The subconscious mind is stimulating us during sleeping and creates dreams . in this dream the special thing is that we ar getting no input but still see colours!
Tanning During tanning we are discovering a different experience with the element fire it gives us heat but also in a very obvious way we can discover colour. We can discover the change in colour of our surrounding but also on a personal body experience we can obtain a different skin colour. This also influences our feeling of our skin . The experience of tanned skin is one of its kind.
Sex One of the most important activators in the sense of touch is sex. During this act we are sharing our most intimate phase together with our partner! We open ourselves physically and in a mental way that’s why this is probably the ultimate experience in between two human beings! The connection and bonding which is created can not be copied by any other leisure activity since this is one of the most beautiful but also most vulnerable acts of humans.
Dancing During dancing we can connect very well in between each other we can create a incredible understanding only through following the steps of the other person! This understanding helps us in our development as human beings since we are getting very close to another person and share and act of freedom and erotic with each other!.
Painting During painting we can discover touch really for ourselves. Since we can put a lot of sensitivity into this activator the result can change a lot. We are in a way visualising our sense and can influence this visualisation with the intensity of the sense itself. Painting can give us not only an experience but also a way of expressing the feeling and communicate through this to others.
Craft Crafting itself is an activator where we can create a physical appearance of our sense. Of course we are creating one idea but in the crafting process itself the sense of touch is the finishing part with the details and the surface. Especially in crafting ceramics our sense of touch gets triggered and defines what the output will be, because we are very close with the material and connect with the object.
Music In the sense of sound music is very obvious since it is literally a translation of feelings and we are communicating to others through our compositions. Music is one strong connecting activator. It creates a lot of tension but can also change our feelings directly. Music is very personal when we create it because we are most of the time not creating the music for somebody else but for ourselves. We are translating our feelings and through this also our thoughts about different kind of topics.
Talking Dialogues are a very limited activator. We are restricted in the freedom of sounds, since we can not express ourselves in languages we don´t know. Even to only communicate with sounds can be very confusing since the meaning of sound can be very different through the cultural backgrounds. It is our main connector but also the weakest and most restricted one. Talking only reduces our possibilities of sharing or creating experiences.
BLA BLA BLA BLA BLA
Driving Driving might not seem obviously relate to sound, but it does in a very subtle but also intense way. When we are driving the sound of speed is surrounding us. Through this sound our experience of speed i given. We are feeling the movement through our ears, the sound of wind blowing around us is one of the main initiators for this sense during driving.
Acting Acting lets us play with our sounds. We are getting more free in this restricted area of language. Acting does not primary have to be understood through the sounds we can already change the experience of others. It delivers informations to others in an obvious and subconscious way. This opens the way of how we experience language we can experience an act in an different language and still get the feelings which are intended to be felt.