The Senses - TOK

This lesson we talked about the idea of the senses, how much we use them, and rely on them, and how the senses of animals differ from our own. We each had to produce presentations on an animal of our choice and present how their senses differ from ours, and how they have specifically enhanced senses for things like hunting, feeding and seeing. These different senses were portrayed by everyone through acting, a speech or in some cases, through the medium of dance.

As humans, are senses are probably considered completely normal, and nothing other than. We have good senses, in every area of which we sense: Smell, Sight, Tastes, Touch and Audible. For the normal person, all these are perfectly satisfactory, and enable us to live at a good level. We have a well rounded system, which allows us to sense and perceive. Our senses however can be slightly impaired, people need glasses often, hearing aids, or lack of smell all together.

The fact we are all different, and that the level of which we sense can vary, albeit only by a small amount, would suggest the way in which we perceive is completely different. We can only perceive the world in which we live, through our own eyes so to speak. Our perception and judgement of the world should in theory be completely different from the next persons. The only ideas and perceptions of the world we can trust are our own.

To try and get a feel for how animals perceive the world will be quite difficult. We must first research how these animals perceive, through their different types of senses. With the majority of animals, they have a heightened sense of something, but a weekend, or just average sense of something else.

In investigated insects, specifically the fly, and another student I’ve been paired up with (Paul Roullion-Miller [spelling?] has investigated the snake.

The Fly, at a first thought, is rather agile creature, often avoiding the vicious swing of our fly swat, suggesting it has good sight for starters, to spot the oncoming mesh of plastic. Also, the idea of flies swarming around some excrement comes to mind, which might suggest something of the idea of smell or a good tolerance of taste, to consume so much dog muck.

In reality, the fly does have great sight, each eye with 3,000 different lenses, giving it superb peripheral vision. Each eye has a ‘flicker fusion,’ or to you and, how many times it refreshes its view; of 300 times per second. Compare this with our flicker rate, of 60 times a second; we get a great idea of quite how brilliant they can see, and how they always seem to dodge the flailing arm, trying to swat a fly on our neck, on a hot day.




Some flies, also has a remarkable sense of taste, with a lot of taste receptors on their small bodies. The blowfly has 3,000 taste receptors on its feet. These miniscule feet, between them contain 3,000 taste receptors, astonishingly. This would explain why you’ll find a dozen or so flies crawling around over some horse manure.

My student buddy, researched the snake. You hear a lot about the snake sensing through it’s tongue, and having infa-red vision. And this is true.

The snakes ability to sense a change in temperature is extraordinary. Pit-vipers have a heat-sensitive organ between the eyes and the nostrils about 0.5 cm deep. This organ has a membrane containing 7,000 nerve endings that respond to temperature changes as small as 0.002-0.003 Celsius. This ability to sense threats, or something attacking, is probably why they seem to have such good reactions, when feeling threatened by something or someone about to strike them.

Snakes however don’t have any ears. Snakes cannot hear the whistle of the snake charmer, instead they will probably be responding to the movement of the whistle. What they lack in audible sense, they gain in their ability to sense heat through touch.

They do not taste, instead use their tongues to being smells into the mouth, and then analyse them as to whether they are tasty or not.

So many different beings have so many different ways of sensing, at different levels and different abilities. In some cases it, creatures don’t sense at all.

This brings me on to how can we trust our senses? Are our senses truly accurate at portraying the world around us. In reality the world could stink on the foulest most disgusting smells, we just haven’t the ability to sense it; this might be why the fly has such a high tolerance to foul smells, from rubbish or excrement. How can we say, that the world around is, is as it really is? How can we say that the world we experience is the “Real World?”

We can’t is the plain answer. We can only perceive the world, through us, no one else, no other being or species. And each species will always have these different levels of sense, giving some species superior strengths of sense (mouthful), and others less such a good ability.

Which is why, when I become King, or God (whether or not he or she or it is real or not) I will breed Flies, Snakes, Humans, Tigers, Fish, Trees and bacterium (and other such species), to form a super being, to rule all. It certainly will be, “all sensing, all dancing”