The worlds beyond my senses
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 serve as portals to the universe. They provide my brain with the data using which the brain interprets 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 love and what to avoid. Over the years, this process 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, it does not ingest any signals from the external world)? What could such an entity conceive and comprehend? 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 (or may sound even absurd), yet in my sleep, floating amidst dreams, I am such an entity. My brain is not processing much of sensory data (for example, related to vision), and yet, devoid of sensory input, some juxtaposition of brain and mind do conjure up brilliant worlds of fantasies.
Among my quintet of senses — vision, hearing, olfaction, tactility, and gustation –the faculties of sight and sound are especially vital for discerning the external 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, and, in the current era, for reading a book — thus broadening my perspectives through the wisdom and experiences shared by others.
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 our world that my senses can grasp is small. Beyond the confines of my sensory capabilities, there exist worlds of which I remain utterly unaware of (that is assuming that they are there but are merely beyond the capabilities of my perception). The worlds I am unaware of are far 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 far 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 (and their physiology) can see only an exceedingly small fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum, which (and no surprise) we have named is 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 tiny sliver of all the electromagnetic spectrum that exists around me. I have no idea what worlds exist 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 range (and 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 vibrate in that range. Like for electromagnetic waves, it 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 (or I assume that is so, even if I cannot be sure) of which I am not aware. Who knows what kind of wonders exist in the worlds I cannot see and cannot hear? Is there a world that exists and is beyond my perception, however, is a deeply philosophical question.
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 no other “objects” in the sky that can reflect various parts of electromagnetic towards me, but I am unaware of them. If they do, what would they look like?
At some level, the above sentence is bizarre because I am using words and experiences that are human to discuss what is independent of us, and more so, has never been perceived by our senses. I am trying to augment the world I cannot see or hear into the world I am familiar with, but a moment of reflection tells how absurd the notion is.
Heck for that matter, there may be many more dimensions out there that my senses cannot contact. Perhaps, because of some unintended perturbations, those unknown dimensions leak into the realm I can perceive and after a moment retract themselves back to where they came from. Who knows what else is out there and is beyond the range of my senses.
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.
Note: Electromagnetic and compression waves: The former can travel through empty space while the latter requires the existence of a compressible medium, like air.
