Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2017-07-15]: Scientists discovered a gene which could be related to the sense of touch and the general sense we have of our body. Mutations in the gene caused the two to have movement and balance problems and the loss of some forms of touch. [1]
But what does Harmonia Philosophica has to say about senses and especially about the sense of touch?
All of our senses are basically the same: Through a medium our body touches something. Through the eyes, the ears, the nose, the fingers. Every time we sense something, we “touch” something. [2] But we can be fooled into “touching” something that is not there. [3, 4] Or we can fool our eyes with illusions. [5, 6] Senses are the passive reception of signals [7] along with their active interpretation by our brain. We can literally see what we think. [8] And most of the things we take for granted – like motion – are just byproducts of the small defetcs in our brain. [9] We have many senses [10] and all of them are basically the same in terms of truthiness and validity – i.e. they mean nothing with regards to truthiness and validity…
Yes we have fully functioning hands.
And yet, without mind, we are not be able to touch anything…
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