Seven senses ?

[Externet]

Is it improper to add temperature and 'verticality' (balance) senses to the normally listed  hearing, tact, taste, vision, smell ?

An eighth could be the common sense, the least common of senses...

I can directionally detect nearby hot spots with cheeks, hot/cold ingested foods;  body position in darkness/bed, by inner ear or guts.

 

Edited November 29, 2018 by Externet

[John Cuthber]

Proprioception,

hunger, 

needing a wee.

heat ,

cold,

pain,

nausea.

How many do you want?

The idea that there are only 5 is, I think, one of Aristotle's mistakes.

 

[Phi for All]

Let's not forget time sense as well. And sexual stimulus.

But common sense is an illusion; there are fewer concepts common to everyone than you think.

[Ken Fabian]

I would expect anyone studying physiology would know that with respect to our senses you need to be able to count past five. I've seen counts that go as high as 21, but it depends on how you define a single sense. Take Touch for example; if you define touch as whatever the skin senses then it is one, but if you distinguish between feeling pressure on the skin and feeling something disturb the hairs on the skin or feel warming or cooling or pain as different to simple touch, you count more than one. These can have quite distinct and different nerve receptor endings as well as sensations - but, for example, it is quite common for direct skin contact (nerve endings under hairless skin) and contact with hairs (nerve endings within hair follicles) to blur together and be perceived as a single sensation, but that is a result of not really paying attention.

[CharonY]

18 hours ago, Ken Fabian said:

I would expect anyone studying physiology would know that with respect to our senses you need to be able to count past five. I've seen counts that go as high as 21, but it depends on how you define a single sense. Take Touch for example; if you define touch as whatever the skin senses then it is one, but if you distinguish between feeling pressure on the skin and feeling something disturb the hairs on the skin or feel warming or cooling or pain as different to simple touch, you count more than one. These can have quite distinct and different nerve receptor endings as well as sensations - but, for example, it is quite common for direct skin contact (nerve endings under hairless skin) and contact with hairs (nerve endings within hair follicles) to blur together and be perceived as a single sensation, but that is a result of not really paying attention.

This is akin to classifying senses based on the used organs (e.g. skin in this case). But as mentioned it is also arbitrary and useful in certain contexts, but meaningless in others. The point being that the number of categories does not matter, just the reasoning for using a certain classification.