Senses are peculiar. We’ve presumably got five of them; sight, taste, smell, touch and hearing. What they do is to provide sensory data for our minds to make use of. Without them, life would presumably be harder on us.
Equally important as the senses we usually talk about, we’ve got mechanisms that gather and interpret data for us, the internal senses. Sometimes they’re called a sixth sense. More often, they’re not included at all in the discussion about senses.
The word origins from the latin word sentire, which means feeling. Applying the division of internal and external worlds of Descartes, we can easily explain why we’ve ended up with five senses who all depend on the external world.
Nowadays it’s pretty clear that the world isn’t either external or internal, but both. In that case, we’ve got a variety of senses to choose from, all of our feelings, gut feelings just as well as the sight and so on. Exploring all of them is crucial for our development.
What senses do you have?