Usually, when human senses are discussed or listed, vision is given a high status. We do have other important senses and they matter. I am intrigued by discussions of our senses and their effects on our understanding. I have the idea that by several measures, the sense of touch, especially in our fingertips, may be the most terrific, sensitive, advanced of our senses, compared to other animals.
We have composite stone counters in our kitchen and I am impressed by how tiny crumbs and very small pits in the surface can be sensed by my fingertips. We have been reading "Livewired" by David Eagleman, which is basically about the steady modification that takes place in human brains because of experiences of the body. It is common for purposes of excitement and emphasis to say that this book or that trip will "change your life forever." The brain scientists are telling us that everything continuously changes our brains, redesigns them, changes their layout. Not drastically but steadily. Eagleman makes clear the advantages of a livewire arrangement over some more permanent layout, however clever and sophisticated.
I have been taken with the difference between just thinking about something and speaking or writing about the matter. When I speak, I employ many sorts of muscles and faculties to choose words, and enunciate them. When I write about something, again I engage some different subsystems and connections to decide on explanatory approaches, choose expressions, cause my fingers and arms to express what I want. When I spot a mis-type or decide something handwritten is not what I want, I do various things to delete, erase and modify.
What I know of the world is very much related to my vision, my hearing, my sense of smell and touch and to my previous ideas and experiences. I recently saw an article, in Pocket's suggested readings, I think, that stated that drawing something can help in understanding. I don't use drawing but I see how it might be helpful. Drawing would probably employ yet different parts of me than speaking, writing, typing or just thinking. I have been meaning to read Frank R. Wilson's "The Hand" and I may yet.
