Why Are We Aware Of Our Senses?

[Max Regan]

Hi guys,

I’ve been thinking about this lately and it got me really confused. Could senses exist outside of awareness?

What do I mean by that? Let’s take the example of seeing. When you see something, an image is generated in your brain of that object. You can see its shape, color etc. And in reaction to that image there is a response, you judge it, name it, whatever. But you only feel you judge it, in reality your brain does the judging on its own, it’s the illusion of control, the illusion of the Self. So in theory, the image generated in our brain is not necessary, it’s an extra step. The judging process could simply do its thing without us actually “see” the object. How would that manifest? For example, someone would throw you a ball and you would still catch it without actually getting the imagery of the ball flying towards you. Confusing, right? How would we call that, intuition?

I think it’s not that crazy as it sounds, for example when you catch a virus, there is also a response from your body. The immune system does its thing and you don’t even know about that, you don't feel that.

Many other questions arise from that: is it possible that we have senses that we don’t know about? Are senses just mechanisms of our mind to make the illusion of the Self more vivid? And if we weren’t aware of all our senses, what would we be left with? Thoughts maybe? What do you think?

[FindingPeace]

I totally understand what you're saying here.

So it could be that our bodies would continue to function without the need for our conscious-awareness of the experience of it. Sort of like sleepwalking. In fact our brains are capable of carrying out fairly normal every-day tasks purely using the subconscious and not the conscious.

9 hours ago, Max Regan said:

in reaction to that image there is a response, you judge it, name it, whatever. But you only feel you judge it, in reality your brain does the judging on its own, it’s the illusion of control, the illusion of the Self.

Yes. But the illusion of self is comming from the mechanisms of the brain in the first place.

9 hours ago, Max Regan said:

So in theory, the image generated in our brain is not necessary, it’s an extra step.

Well this suggests that the image is 'generated' at all. It brings in to question what conscious-awareness even is. Perhaps the image isn't gernerated, it just exists as electrical signals in the brain. But somehow 'we' percieve an image of those signals. But where is that image?

9 hours ago, Max Regan said:

 is it possible that we have senses that we don’t know about?

Considering that the functions of most of our brain are unconscious, this is quite likely. We are not aware of the majority of our brain functions. We can't control our heart beat directly, or our nervous-system, or our immune system. Most of the brain is busy running our body and interpreting reality via the senses. 'We' are only aware of a tiny proportion of it. Mostly just the virtual-reality of our interpretation of reality.

9 hours ago, Max Regan said:

And if we weren’t aware of all our senses, what would we be left with?

There would really be a 'we'. I mean, 'who' are you when you are asleep? Your body carries on living and your brain functioning, yet where are 'you'?

9 hours ago, Max Regan said:

What do you think?

I'll  have to consult my brain.. it's the one doing the thinking, not 'me'.