Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, “This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in; fits me rather neatly, doesn’t it? In fact, it fits me staggeringly well! It must have been made to have me in it! — Douglas Adams
My senses are my links to the universe. They provide my brain with data that it uses to interpret the world outside of me. Through the signals brought in by my senses, the brain discerns what to savor and what to shun; what to accept and what to let go. Over the years, this interplay between senses and the brain has shaped my preferences and aversions.
What would I call an entity that is completely isolated from the external world (that is, for some reason, does not ingest any signals from the external world)? What would its comprehension of the external world be like? For that matter, for such an entity, do words like ‘external world’ even hold a meaning.
This inquiry might seem strange, yet in my sleep, floating amidst dreams, I am such an entity. My brain is not processing much of sensory data (for example, sensory data related to vision), and yet, devoid of sensory inputs, something in brain is able to conjure up fantastical worlds.
Among my quintet of senses — vision, hearing, smell, touch, and taste — the faculties of sight and sound are especially vital for discerning the external world (and also, for our survival in that world).
Vision, frequently hailed as the most important sense, empowers me to discern forms, hues, and motions. The percepts of vision are crucial for orienting myself in my surroundings, seeking sustenance, identifying friends and adversaries
Hearing allows me to perceive sounds, a sense essential for recognizing the rustling of leaves, engaging in spoken language and communication, appreciating melodies, and heeding the sonic warnings of hazards that lurk in my environment.
As indispensable as my sight and hearing may be, the part of world that my senses can grasp is small. Beyond the confines of my sensory capabilities, there exist worlds of which am utterly unaware of . The worlds I am unaware of are much bigger than the ones I comprehend.
The mechanism of my vision involves the transformation of electromagnetic waves into electrical impulses by my retinal cells, which are then relayed to the brain for interpretation. The richness of the world I see has extraordinary details — the blue sky, constantly changing formation of clouds drifting in the wind, the mountain peaks topped with the whiteness of snow, or sometimes a rainbow unfurled across the sky.
And yet, the world I do not see is bigger than the one I do see. The electromagnetic spectrum encompasses a wide range of wavelengths, from very low-frequency radio waves to high-frequency gamma rays. The entire electromagnetic spectrum includes, in order of increasing wavelength (or decreasing frequency): radio waves, microwaves, infrared radiation, visible light, ultraviolet radiation, X-rays, and gamma rays.
My eyes can see only an exceedingly small fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum, which we have named as the visible spectrum (what else would we call it?).
The visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum ranges from about 380 nanometers (nm) (violet color) to about 750 nanometers (nm) (red color) in wavelength and only makes up about 0.0035% of the entire electromagnetic spectrum. So, I am only seeing a sliver of the entirety of electromagnetic spectrum that exists around me. I have no idea what goes on in the part of spectrum that I cannot see.
It is inconceivable to think that the only interesting things that are happening in the universe are happening in the fraction of electromagnetic spectrum I can see. That idea would be too self-centric or anthropomorphic.
The story of our auditory perception is no different. The sounds I hear are compression waves travelling through the air that make our eardrum (or tympanic membrane) vibrate. These vibrations are converted to electrical signals that are sent to the brain for further processing.
The physiology of the human ear is such that it responds to compression waves between 20 Hz and 20,000 Hz (Hertz) and makes me capable of hearing things that produce vibrations in that range. Like for electromagnetic waves, a limited range of my hearing does not imply that compression waves do not exist beyond the frequency range of my hearing. They do and physiology of ear in different animals can respond to those waves. The Greater Wax Moth is capable of sensing compression waves at a frequency of 300kHz.
The bottom line is that there is a lot going on out there of which I am not aware. Who knows what kind of wonders exist in the worlds I cannot see and cannot hear? Possibilities of worlds existing beyond my perception, however, is a strangely philosophical question — what does in mean to ponder about realities that are beyond my sensory perceptions.
A cloud in the sky is visible to me because it reflects the electromagnetic waves coming from the sun in the range of visible spectrum. Are there other objects floating in the sky that can reflect different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, which I might not be aware of?
In some ways, discussing objects that exist beyond my awareness feels strange, as I am using words and experiences to define things that have never been perceived by my senses. I am attempting to map an unseen, unheard world onto the one I know.
Heck for that matter, there may be many more dimensions out there that my senses cannot contact with. Perhaps, because of some unintended perturbations, once in a while those unknown dimensions sometimes leak into the realm I can perceive and then retract themselves back to where they came from. Ghosts appear from no where and then vanish.
Do I ever dream of floating through a space that has more than three dimensions? Even if I do, how would my waking self-know?
Ciao and thanks for reading.
Note: Electromagnetic and compression waves: The former can travel through empty space while the latter requires the existence of a compressible medium, like air.
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