Spiritual concepts
Five senses system
It will be helpful here if you have The Model of the Mind open in order that you can refer to it as you go along.
The system of the 5 senses processes information from the eyes, ears, nose, taste buds and skin – external sensations. In effect, the Physical 5 senses provides the 5 senses system, which is a function based system not mechanical or material one, with input.
Analogously it is like the systems that convert mouse input, keyboard input, microphone input and so on to software based input that can be processed by the programs of a computer.
Generally speaking, we are receiving constant input from the system of the 5 senses. This is recorded as ‘sensations’ - tastes, smells, sounds, images, and feelings from touch.
A considerable amount of filtering, analysing and processing goes on to make what is effectively ‘electrical and chemical input’ into interpretable input that the other functions of the mind can act upon. What does this mean?
- Firstly, we do not see or experience the full extent of the external environment – a lot of input is removed so we are not bombarded by too much sensory information. We hear only a tiny fraction of the total range of sounds, we see only a tiny fraction of the electromagnetic radiation. We experience only what we need to experience in order to function as a human being.
- Secondly, the input is processed further. So, for example, we obtain a 3D picture from our eyes and a ‘directed’ sound impression from our ears
We never experience ‘reality’ with our 5 senses. We only ever experience a version of reality. We operate, are born, live and die in a virtual world
But there is an extra level of filtering that goes on that is crucial to our ability to have a spiritual experience.
For more details on how our sensory system filters out data see Where is heaven?
For more detail on our 5 senses and what they do see:
Observations
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- Al-Ghazzali - The Alchemy of Happiness - 03 Knowledge of the Self
- Alastair I. McIntosh - Enhancing perception
- Alice in Wonderland - Ch 09 - 1 The Mock Turtle's story
- Aristotle - History of Animals - Tree of Life
- Aristotle - Metaphysics IV - Perceptions and Reality
- Aristotle - On Sleep and Wakefulness - Dreams
- Asvaghosha - The Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana - Spiritual interactions
- Asvaghosha - The Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana - The ego
- Asvaghosha - The Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana - The Personality
- Asvaghosha - The Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana - The problems of the 5 senses
- Azam, Dr Etienne Eugène - Hypnotism, Double Consciousness and alterations of personality – The side effects of hypnotism - hypersensitivity
- Balzac, Honoré de - Louis Lambert - 03 The five senses
- Beers, Clifford - The odour of burning flesh and other pestilential fumes
- Bees – Lectures by Rudolf Steiner - The sensory system of a bee
- Bergson, Henri - Matter and Memory - The 5 senses
- Bergson, Henri - Matter and Memory - The cyclical nature of Perceptions
- Bergson, Henri - Matter and Memory - The systems of the universe
- Bergson, Henri - Matter and Memory - Why we have the senses
- Bergson, Henri - Time and Free Will - Emotion and the 5 senses
- Blindfolded and epilepsy
- Bose, Sir Jagadis Chandra - from Autobiography of a Yogi - Paramahansa Yogananda 01
- Bose, Sir Jagadis Chandra - Plants and perceptions - response to environment
- Bose, Sir Jagadis Chandra - Plants and perceptions - sensitivity
- Brihad-Aranyaka Upanishad
- Bruno, Giordano – On Magic - Spirit
- Buddha - Diamond sutra - Extract: Created things are like dreams
- Burt, Sir Cyril - On the mind
- Burt, Sir Cyril - Osses and blinkers
- Carlyle, Thomas - Sartor Resartus - Light sparkles floating in the aether of deity
- Chandogya Upanishad
- Clare, John - The rule of five
- Concealed Treasure of Dao; Thesis of Sitting Forgetfulness
- Corbin, Henry - Na-koja-Abad: a place outside of place
- Count of Eulenburg – 03 1915, July 31st
- Custance, John - Wisdom, Madness and Folly - The 'fully alive' state of mania
- Custance, John - Wisdom, Madness and Folly - The horrors and insights of the depressive phase
- Custance, John - Wisdom, Madness and Folly - What is reality
- Damasio, Professor Antonio - Perceptions
- Damasio, Professor Antonio - TED talk: The quest to understand consciousness
- Dante - Purgatorio - Canto 17
- Dao scriptures
- Dawkins, Professor Richard - Unweaving the Rainbow - On hearing
- Dawkins, Professor Richard - Unweaving the Rainbow - Prosopagnosia
- Dawkins, Professor Richard - Unweaving the Rainbow - Sound
- Dawkins, Professor Richard - Unweaving the Rainbow - The seagull
- Democritus - Fr 117 Diogenes Laertius IX 72
- Democritus - Galenus Diels fr 125
- Democritus - Of knowledge there are two forms
- Descartes, Rene - Discoveries in sleep
- Descartes, Rene - On appetites and emotions
- Descartes, Rene - On pain and the 5 senses
- Descartes, Rene - The physical world is a mathematical construct
- Descartes, Rene - The subjective nature of perceptions
- Descartes, Rene - The unreliability of the 5 senses
- Descartes, Rene - Why some people are unable to conceive of the existence of a spiritual realm
- Devereux, Paul - What is reality?
- Dickinson, Emily - Had we our senses But perhaps ‘t is well they’re not at home
- Dr Elmer Green – On Reality and Perception
- Dr Stephen Black - Curing Tinnitus with hypnotherapy, and Tinnitus as a psychosomatic illness
- Emerson, Ralph Waldo - Over-soul - On the senses
- Emerson, Ralph Waldo - The Poet - The universe is the externalisation of the soul
- Eriugena, Johannes Scotus - Periphyseon – Reality
- Fechner, Gustav Theodor - The Little Book of Life after Death 02
- Ficino, Marsilio – Selected Letters - From a letter to Giovanni Cavalcanti
- Ficino, Marsilio – Selected Letters - From a letter to Giovanni Nesi
- Gennadius
- Guru Granth - Bilaval 03
- Hennell, Thomas - Bishop Raven’s grave
- Hume, David - 6th sense versus the other senses
- Hume, David - Animals have similar functions to humans
- Huxley, Aldous - Mind at large
- Huxley, Aldous - The Doors of Perception - The 5 senses
- Jainism - The Syādvāda
- Jeans, Sir James - The Mysterious Universe - Reality
- Jones, Sir William - On the Philosophy of the Asiatics
- Kant, Immanuel - Critique of Pure Reason - Inner speech
- Kant, Immanuel - Critique of Pure Reason - On the 5 senses
- Kant, Immanuel - Dreams of a Spirit Seer - 03 Chapter One
- Kant, Immanuel - Dreams of a Spirit Seer - How are hallucinations & visions constructed?
- Katha Upanishad
- Kaushitaki Upanishad
- Kena Upanishad
- Kepler, Johannes - Harmony and spirit
- Khan, Hazrat Inayat - Misc. Quotes - On mind and body
- Khan, Hazrat Inayat - Misc. Quotes - On why we are here
- Khusrau, Amir - Ghazal 1002
- Koestler, Arthur - Janus - Revelations in solitary confinement
- Koestler, Arthur - Janus - The unreliability of memory
- Leibniz - The Monadology - 03
- Lovecraft, H P - The Silver Key
- Mach, Ernst - The limitations of memory and the 5 senses
- Master Naong - Song of the Pure Land
- Meister Eckhart - Selected writings - Immortal soul versus mortal soul
- Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov – Oration on the Origin of Light. A New Theory of Colour – 05 ‘Sound’ is a function of an aggregate
- Muir, John - John of the Mountains - Reality is not what we perceive
- Noodled by narcotics, and seeing how brain compression algorithms at work
- North Whitehead, Alfred – 09 The 5 senses and Reality
- Ouspensky, P D - Tertium Organum - Extension in space and existence in time
- Ouspensky, P D - Tertium Organum - Lobachevsky and Kant
- Planck, Max - Look beyond the senses
- Plato - Theaetetus - On sensations
- Plato - Timaeus - Reincarnation
- Plotinus - The Enneads - The Soul
- Plotinus - The Enneads - The use and act of Reason is a characteristic Act of the Soul
- Poimandres - Hermes Trismegistus
- Pordage, John - On God
- Prasna Upanishad
- Prasna Upanishad
- Prasna Upanishad
- Ramachandran, Dr V S - Removing pain
- Ramachandran, Dr V S - The distortion of perceptions to fit belief systems
- Ramachandran, Dr V S - The Mirror box
- Research paper - Visual Awareness and the Detection of Fearful Faces
- Rumi - The Book of Love - The way the soul is with the senses
- S'RÎMAD BHÂGAVATAM – Canto 11, Chapter 03 - Liberation from Mâyâ
- Sacks, Oliver - The hallucinations of migraine
- Schopenhauer, Arthur - The World as Will and Idea - The Innocence of plants
- Schrodinger, Erwin - Mind and Matter - The 5 senses
- Schrodinger, Erwin - Mind and Matter - The Cat
- Schrodinger, Erwin - Mind and Matter - What is Reality
- Schrodinger, Erwin - Mind and Matter - Where is Mind
- Seeing blindfolded
- Seeing with closed eyes - in the state of somnambulism, things happen differently
- Shaivism - Concepts and symbols - Play and Theatre
- Shaivism - Concepts and symbols - Reincarnation and Destiny
- Shereshevsky, Soloman - Every sound produced an experience of light and colour
- Shereshevsky, Soloman - Feels no pain
- Shereshevsky, Soloman - Temperature control
- Shereshevsky, Soloman - The effects of synaesthesia
- Sherrington, Sir Charles - Man and his Nature - Aggregates and 'mind'
- Sherrington, Sir Charles - Man and his Nature - The eye and its functions
- Six Dharmas of Nāropa - 03 Arising and Perfecting Yoga
- Socrates - Plato Phaedo - Reality
- Spender, Stephen - Never being, but always at the edge of Being
- Steiner, Rudolf - Elemental Beings of Earth and Water [3/4/1912] lecture notes
- Steiner, Rudolf - Nature spirits - Perception and evolution
- Stockham, Alice Bunker - Karezza - On the spirit and the soul
- Svetasvatara Upanishad
- Swedenborg, Emanuel - The Infinite - Aggregates
- Swedenborg, Emanuel - The Infinite - Why are we here?
- Swedenborg, Emanuel - The Unit of energy and infinitely small
- Symbols – Picts – Sacred site - Crosses in Eggs [citadels]
- Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre - Phenomenon of Man - Spirit
- Ten year old boy hallucinations
- The Book of Taliesin - Kanu y Byt Mawr
- The Ceasing of Notions – 05 The limiting effect of the 5 senses
- The Ceasing of Notions – 06 Reality
- The Ceasing of Notions – 21 The Body is not the Soul [Mortal or Immortal]
- The Cloud of unknowing
- The Cloud of unknowing
- The Heart of Prajñāpāramitā - 'Gone, gone, gone to the other shore, gone together to the other shore.
- The young girl with super senses
- Tholey, Paul - Lucidity Letters - On lucid dreaming
- Tibetan Book of the Dead - Wheel of life
- Tirrukural, the - Book 1 from Realization
- Traherne, Thomas - Centuries of Meditations - It is not by going with the feet, but by journeys of the soul
- Wirth, Oswald – 01 The Magician
- Wirth, Oswald – 07 The Chariot
- Yoga Sutras of Patanjali - Book II - Sutras 01 to 55
- Yoga Sutras of Patanjali - Book IV - 02. The Atman
- Yoga Sutras of Patanjali - Book IV - 11. to 34.