Member-only story
Thinking as a sensory modality
In my opinion: Thinking is a sensory modality fundamentally different from the traditional senses.
We will return to this point later. For now, let’s stay with the general concept of sense. By definition, a sense is a fallible way of contacting something that is not necessarily identical to the contact itself. We look at the world. We smell the coffee. Likewise, we feel the skin.
All our senses — seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching — are fallible. Often, we think we smell something that reminds us of something else. It smells like… and yet, we were mistaken because there was no fire. This fallibility makes senses so useful, as they enable us to orient ourselves in our environment. How exactly does this work?
The knowledge of the fallibility of our senses forces us to be vigilant and mindful, which remains evolutionarily advantageous. By suspecting errors in our thinking, we are in constant scrutiny of our environment. We more or less consciously negotiate what is happening and know about the potential to be mistaken.
Evolutionarily, it is not intended to be in a subway station at rush hour with hundreds of people. As much as we can distract ourselves with reading, headphones, thinking about things, our unconscious concentration of senses…
